What a terrific idea - an apartment for gardners!

If the apartments are all on one floor - like patio apartments - provide enough space to plant gardens and enough patio space for maybe a chair and table. If more than one story - large enough balconies to have balcony gardens. Another suggestion is to have a large common area for gardeners to create a community garden with benches to sit on and enjoy the gardens they create, maybe birdfeeders and bird bathes, etc.

Where will this garden apartment be located?

I'm not currently an apartment dweller, but used to be. I would have absolutely loved living next to a botanic garden. We have a small one in our town also open to the public, and we often go through it on our daily walk.

Reason I'm posting is I wonder if you have spoken with the people at the botanic garden for help in landscaping your apartment complex. I bet they would love having the opportunity to help "blend" the complex with the gardens, maybe make it seem more an extension of the gardens. I suspect you could get premium rental rates if the tenants feel they are living in rather than just next to the gardens.

If you build larger patios as a previous poster mentioned, how about having an outdoor water connection/source. Makes watering containers a lot easier, and in an apartment your tenants will be mostly restricted to container gardening. And if you have lots of plants or are outside gardening a lot, hardwood floors are a big plus. Easier to clean than carpet and much more forgiving of spills. Also, design in as many windows as possible, providing bright light for indoor plants.

Best of luck to you.

I second what opal said. I have a 26 x 4 1/2 ft. balcony, but it's not deep enough. I've lived in apartments for the last 10 years and have had balconies on all of them. Two of the apartments had two balconies, one off an office and one off the main living area, two different exposures. The most important thing apart from the depth is outside access to water, plus an electrical outlet that could be used for solar fountains, etc. Also, a balcony barrier that provides light rather than closes it off is best. You can see the railings on my balcony. Every other floor in my building has a metal panel which diminishes the light. I was fortunate to get a balcony with an open railing.

As for living near a Botanic Garden, I would give my eye teeth to overlook it. There are many large condo/apartment buildings overlooking our Denver Botanic Gardens, and it's a wonderful setting. I love your ideas.

{{gwi:703}}

THAT IS A GREAT IDEA! SOMETHING TO KEEP IN MIND WOULD BE AVAILABILITY OF SPACE FOR TENANTS TO BE ABLE TO DISPLAY HANGING BASKETS OR WINDOW BOXES. MY APARTMENT HAS SIDING ALONG THE WINDOWS, SO DRILLING INTO IT TO INSTALL BRACKETS FOR WINDOW PLANTINGS IS IMPOSSIBLE (I DON'T THINK I WOULD GET MY SECURITY DEPOSIT BACK!) OR THE APARTMENTS YOU BUILD COULD ALREADY HAVE SOMETHING LIKE THAT INSTALLED.

WHAT AN ORIGINAL IDEA YOU HAVE!

I definitely agree with all of the above! I would enforce the need for outdoor access to water and electric. In additon, you should be aware of this particular group's needs in your complex's procedures and regulations. Your landscaping should not intrude on personal spaces, and personal spaces should not have such strictly enforced borders (either by rule or by physical barrier) that they cannot be utilized. For example, where I am, I'm not allowed to have ANYTHING extend beyond the border of the concrete slab of my patio... so it doesn't really allow for pots to be pushed to the edges!
I really like hsermulka's idea of installing hardware so that people do not have to worry about drilling into the siding. Something like posiegirl's trellis would also be a nice addition, or optional feature.
It would also be nice to have a common area where people could do their potting and not have to get dirt and such all over. The more of a community atmosphere you can build, the more of these types of things you can include without risk of things dissapearing.
You probably also will want to consider the direction the parts of the building face, and the relative color. Will it absorb or reflect heat and light, and which is appropriate for that direction?

I love your idea, and look forward to updates on the progress!

Depending on where you may be located, a solar room for each residence would allow year-round gardening. I have seen those light tunnels used to bring in a lot of sunlight into rooms not facing the sun. chuck

I'm an apartment dweller and think this is a wonderful idea. Large balconies that have metal railings that allow plenty of light in. I've seen so many apartments that the balconies are surrounded in wood. The picture posiegirl posted is what my balcony railing looks like and I love it. Also having a community garden would do wonders. Instead of hriing someone to landscape tenants could be assigned their own piece of land to do what they want with. Overlooking the botanical gardens would be a dream come true. I'm jealous I want to live in a gardener friendly apartment complex.

Seeing how long ago this question was posted, it is probably too late but then again, building projects like these can take a while. One thing I would really love is to have a composting space. There are a number of different ways you could provide this. If you are concerned about animals, there are animal proof composters but if everyone is burying the food scraps, there should not be a problem -I think most gardeners would get this. However, another option is to give each apartment its own composter which would allow them to control what goes in it so they do not have to worry about seeds or weeds that were not taken care of properly before adding to the pile. One thing that is important for composting in the winter time in a climate that gets snow is to have a covered area for the browns. The browns are the carbon material (such as last year's autumn leaves) that you add to a pile after you added the greens (food scraps or lawn clippings) which make the composting process happen.

Great idea to make apartments for gardeners! I bet you will attract very appealing tenants!

CurlyGirl

Please keep us posted. Were these apartments built?