A rented balcony: planting for sun or shade – guide

Editorial team·updated on 15 Sep 2026

Deadlines, funding rates, responsible offices, projects and events in this guide come live from our records. They are not written into the text and are not maintained twice.

You rent a flat in a pre-war building in Neukölln and your balcony is two metres twenty wide. Facing south: an oven from eleven in the morning. Facing north: cool and dark from midday. This is not a detail but the decision that governs your choice of plants – even before the question of what you are allowed to do.

Your starting point

The balcony is part of what you rent, and you may do more than many people think. Boxes and pots inside the parapet are ordinary contractual use and need no permission. It is different when you fix something to or outside it: boxes on the outer face of the railing, trellises on the wall, drilling into render or façade, awnings. That is where free use ends, and the house rules and the tenancy agreement have a say.

Three facts determine everything else. The orientation and how many hours of sun actually arrive – count them on a clear day instead of estimating. The area and the parapet: brick, steel, glass, how high, how deep is the balcony. And water: is there a tap nearby, or do you carry every can through the flat? That last point decides, in the third hot summer, whether anything is still alive.

Is this realistic?

South-facing: what survives in Berlin is heat-proof and roots deeply – lavender, thyme, sage, steppe sage, stonecrop, yarrow, grasses. The bigger the container the better: small boxes dry out in two hours in July. North-facing: ferns, hostas, barrenwort, Waldsteinia, ivy, hydrangea – and far less water. East and west: the most rewarding aspects, where almost anything works.

On weight, an honest calculation helps. Balconies in residential buildings are designed under the current loading standard for an imposed load in the order of four kilonewtons per square metre – roughly four hundred kilograms per square metre. Except that older Berlin balconies were built to older standards and nobody knows their original calculations. Hence the practical rule: spread the weight, place heavy planters near the house wall rather than at the middle of the cantilever, and ask the managing agent about a masonry planter or a trough of several hundred litres – there a structural assessment is appropriate.

Not realistic: a vegetable bed that feeds a person, and a balcony without care. A balcony is the most labour-intensive form of urban greenery, because the water comes only from you. Where you can swap plants and experience in Berlin:

Step by step

1. Count the hours of sun On a clear day, note when the sun reaches the balcony and when it leaves. Under three hours it is a shade balcony, over six a sun balcony – in between everything is easy. That half hour of observation saves two wrong purchases.
2. Read the tenancy agreement and house rules Do they say anything about boxes on the outer face, about awnings, or about drilling? If nothing is stipulated, you may usually mount boxes on the outside as well. Stopping point: drilling into the façade or parapet and fixed trellises are structural changes – ask in writing beforehand.
3. Choose containers, not plants Pots first, contents second. Large volumes, light rather than black (black plastic boxes overheat the roots), a drainage hole and a saucer so that no water drips onto the balcony below. Boxes on the outer face only with brackets made for that kind of parapet.
4. Fix everything securely Stopping point: you are liable for adequate security against falling. A box that drops into the courtyard is not a gardening matter but personal injury. Check the brackets in spring and after every storm, and hang nothing heavy over a pavement.
5. Peat-free soil and long-term supply Use peat-free compost – peat extraction destroys bogs, and there is no reason for it on a balcony. A mineral component and some garden compost hold structure and water better than potting soil alone. A thin mulch of gravel or bark visibly cuts evaporation.
6. Set up watering before summer arrives A simple drip system on a timer, clay cones with bottles, or boxes with a water reservoir – anything that bridges three days away. Think about it first in July and you will be buying replacements in August.
7. Plan for insects Single, unfilled flowers, staggered flowering from March to October, native species, and herbs you let bloom. A small dish of water with stones in it gets more visitors than any bought insect hotel.
8. Consideration as part of the planting Water so that nothing drips downwards, cut back shoots growing onto the neighbouring balcony, and leave nests in boxes or ivy until the young have fledged. That is the difference between a green balcony and an argument in the stairwell.

Time and cost

Time: a planted balcony is an afternoon's work. The watering system takes another hour. After that it is five to ten minutes a day in summer – morning and evening with a south aspect and small boxes.

Cost: an editorial estimate, not a quotation: roughly 60 to 250 euros for three or four good containers, peat-free soil, plants and simple watering, depending on whether you buy potted perennials or work from seed and divisions. Perennials instead of bedding plants is the biggest saving over three years. Soil in large sacks is markedly cheaper than in small ones.

Upkeep: high, and permanently so. Watering is daily, feeding every two to four weeks in the growing season, repotting or refreshing soil in spring, cutting back and winter protection for sensitive pots in autumn. Follow-up costs: soil and replacement plants in the second year, and brackets that rust or go brittle.

What are you allowed to do?

What you may do without consent. Boxes and pots inside the parapet, climbers in pots, a sun sail that holds without drilling, herbs, vegetables, insect aids. Boxes hung on the inward side need no permission; you only have to avoid water damage.

Where the tenancy agreement matters. You may usually mount boxes on the outer face of the railing if the agreement and house rules say nothing about it. But the landlord may prohibit it where it is stipulated – or where the boxes are not adequately secured against falling. You are liable for that security.

Where you must ask first. Drilling into the façade, render or parapet, fixed trellises, awnings, privacy screens, built or bolted planters, anything heavy or anything that cannot be removed without a trace. Get the consent in writing – otherwise you will be discussing restoration when you move out.

And two limits that are not negotiable. Nothing heavy above a pavement or an access route. And if birds are nesting in your balcony greenery, nothing is cut and nothing repotted until the young have fledged.

Matching funding

There is no funding programme for balconies in Berlin. That is our conclusion, not an authority's statement: the state programme GründachPLUS funds roof and façade greening from one hundred and fifty square metres of vegetated area respectively, and a balcony box does not meet those conditions. The district courtyard programmes in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf pay for the courtyard, not the balcony – so if you can get a house community together anyway, the courtyard is the route to money.

Advice, on the other hand, is free. Berlin has an open advice session on urban greening that expressly answers balcony questions, and some Bezirke (districts) have their own greening advice service. Registration is required, there is no charge:

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