PSA: My ornamental balcony garden is a valid form of urban gardening
I'm genuinely annoyed by the elitism that says if you're not growing food, you're doing urban gardening wrong. Sure, tomatoes on a fire escape are cool, but my sanity after ten hours managing job sites hinges on coming home to lavender and cosmos, not checking for aphids on kale. Last summer, I replaced my struggling pepper plants with a cascade of ivy and geraniums, and the mental lift was immediate, no harvest required. Online forums are full of people scoffing at 'non-productive' gardens, but reducing green space to calorie output misses the point entirely. In a concrete jungle, sometimes beauty and tranquility are the most necessary crops. Let's stop gatekeeping what makes a garden worthwhile based solely on what's edible.