Best Tower Garden Planters in Australia for 2024

What are Space Saving Planters?

Space saving planters have been around for a long time, with simple terracotta strawberry towers made common in the early 1900s. Today though, these space saving planters come in all sorts of shapes and ambitious sizes.

Perhaps the most common are countertop herb planters, with built in full spectrum LED lights that mimic sunlight, and allow gardeners in built up urban areas to grow herbs and salad crops indoors even when there’s a limit to natural light.

Higher spec options include vermicomposting garden towers, hydroponic kits, and even aeroponics, which promote natural root development and faster growth for leafy crops.

Below, we take a brief look at the best vertical tower garden brands from around Australia.

Best Aeroponic Tower Garden Brands

Aeroponics is similar to hydroponics, in that plants do not necessarily need a growing medium. Their roots are exposed, and fed through misted nutrients as an aerosol. Some aeroponic systems require no water at all, while others use tower structures to allow for both aerosolized nutrients, as manual watering.

The brands below are cutting into a new market, and in time, they will get cheaper. For now, they are the best the Australian market has to offer, and they are definitely on the premium price spectrum.

Airgarden

Airgarden’s modernist design aesthetic makes a real feature out of your home gardening kit. So much so that they’ve been featured in Vogue.

Their planting pockets hide the base of your plants, so what you’re left with is a beautiful leafy pillar of edibles, but even if you were planning on greening up your space with flowers and foliage, rather than edibles, there are few aeroponic gardens that look as good as Airgarden. 

Be sure to check out our interview with Prue & Tom of Airgarden to find out how the Airgarden works. Also, don't miss our Airgarden product review and installation guide. 

Air Stacky Aeroponic Tower Garden

Even the most basic of Mr Stacky’s tower gardens are revolutionary for smaller spaces, but their latest offering, the Air Stacky aeroponic tower garden, is a complete game changer. 

No matter what kind of space you’re working with, this aeroponic tower garden just fits. It’s suitable for outdoor use, indoor use, child-friendly, and completely perfect for gardeners with busy lives.

The reservoir does the hard work, leaving you to sit back and enjoy the fruits of its labour.

For all you gardeners saying “this isn’t proper gardening”, decrying the lack of soil beneath your fingernails, just take a moment and think about how incredibly rewarding this sort of space-saving, water-saving device would actually be.

Imagine being able to grow ten times as much veg in one spot. For any aeroponic doubters, this affordable aeroponic tower is honestly worth trying, just so you can get a feel for what the future of gardening might look like.

I really was a tower gardening doubter before I got to grips with these kits. But now, for me, they’re just perfect for tomatoes. Partly because they’re simple to grow using aeroponics, which seems to have been invented entirely for their benefit, but also because they take up so much space otherwise. 

Refer to our in-depth Air Stacky aeroponic tower garden review for more details. 

Urban Green Farms

Urban Green Farms produce one of the most ambitious hydroponic towers you can buy in Australia. They look good, they work perfectly, and with automatically filtered water pumped through directly to the roots of your plants you can grow anything from flowering annuals to productive kitchen crops.

The Familia Vertical Hydroponic Tower units are available from Urban Green Farms, and have 80 planting pockets to accommodate anything from tiny strawberries to fully mature tomato plants. 

Best Hydroponic Tower Garden Brands

Hydroponic gardening is a broad term used to describe gardening in pure water, or with moving or automated water. It can also be described as self-watering systems where growing mediums like compost, coir bark, or clay pebbles are used as a substrate in addition to water.

All of the brands below create easy-to-install hydroponic systems which save space with vertical growing room, or pipe systems.

Mr. Stacky Vertical Gardens

Mr Stacky are the leaders in outdoor commercial tower farming in Australia. First to market 5 years ago, they have developed this entire space from the ground up

Mr Stacky's goal is to help people monetize their land with semi-passive income.

Energy costs are a big concern for many people when they start out with hydroponics, especially with larger integrated units like these garden towers. But Mr Stacky have you covered with their solar powered hydroponic drip towers. 

You can buy their hydroponic towers directly from Mr Stacky, or through Amazon for fast delivery, and get started at any time of year either indoors or out. 

Some of their simpler tower planters don’t include hydroponics, but help to save space too, so have a look through their full range and decide what’s right for you.

For more info, check out our Mr Stacky hands-on product review.

Verti Gro Australia

Verti Gro Australia produce vertical hydroponic garden towers that can be used in chains, with or without hydroponics. Their kits are ideal for large scale operations as well as for single planters in gardens, balconies, or even indoors.

The simple planters are based on strawberry towers, but are ideal for herbs and salad crops too. More ambitious growers have even grown tomatoes, courgettes, and cucumbers thanks to the efficient distribution of moisture, and ideal drainage.

Check out our review and installation guide for Verti Grow Solar Eco Farm. 

Aerospring Hydroponics

Like many start up gardening brands, Aerospring sells directly through their website, and through their amazon store. While Aerospring towers have less root space, they make a more appealing unit for indoor or patio gardeners with tighter towers that take up less space.

If design is your thing, and you’re looking for neat and compact growing options, they’ve got hydroponic towers for indoors and outdoors, so everyone can grow their own veggies no matter what size their garden is.

If you think hydroponics is for you then be sure to check our list of hydroponic plants to grow in Australia.

If you really want a gardening challenge, and don’t mind putting in a few extra hours in order to get the most you can possibly get from your space, consider installing a vermicomposting planter.

Vermicompost is essentially just worm poo when the worms are fed on kitchen waste, and allowed to work through the roots of your plants.

Vermicomposting produces rich soil, and liquid fertiliser in trays at the base. There are dozens of units out there, but the two brands below have something unique. 

Garden Tower 2 Australia

Recognised as “the world’s most advanced garden planter”, the Garden Tower 2 is a fully integrated vermicomposting unit, with planting space on every angle and six layers of planting, and enough room to grow sixty plants in less than 4 square feet.

As a huge bonus, the Garden Tower system produces copious amounts of worm tea (a by-product of the composting produces) that can be used on other veg, and around the garden, or even on houseplants.

Subpod

Subpod’s contribution to modern gardening is this impeccably useful worm composter, or vermicomposter. The entire purpose of this compost bin is to utilise nature to eliminate kitchen waste for good.

Its underground installation means it’s automatically down where the action happens, and its walls help to aerate your compost as it’s processed by your existing garden worms.

Unlike most of the products in this article, Subpod won’t directly allow you to grow anything, but it’s one of the most space efficient compost systems you can buy, and it comes in different sizes to suit all gardens.

Tower Garden Planters Frequently Asked Questions

How do you feed a vermicomposter?

Vermicomposting units should be fed with a mix of wet, dry, green, and brown materials. So kitchen waste should be topped up with occasional layers of dry newspaper, or dried leaves to keep the moisture levels just right, and encourage more even churning of the kitchen waste.

Is hydroponics easy to use?

Hydroponics are easy to use, setup and install. You can build your own DIY hydroponic systems easily, but for reliable results (especially if you need Led lighting or ventilation) go for a decent pre-built unit, which will take all of the headaches out of installation and set-up.

Is aeroponics easy to use?

Aeroponics are super simple to set up. If you’re building your own unit from scratch, there’s a lot to consider, but if you invest in a pre-built aeroponic unit, they are quick to set up and easy to use.

Are hydroponic herb planters worth it?

Hydroponic herb planters are definitely worth it if you have limited space, or no garden at all. Even gardeners with loads of space still swear by hydroponics to produce quick crops that are easy to prepare without any need for washing or rinsing.

Is hydroponics good for vegetables?

Hydroponics are a good way to grow vegetables, replicating soil nutrients through liquid additives and oxygenating pumps. Vegetables tend to grow faster and with fewer diseases in hydroponics, and in lit up systems, they will grow strongly even through winter.

Is aeroponics better than hydroponics?

Aeroponics and hydroponics are similar growing methods, using oxygenated water pumps to move moisture around the planter. The key difference in aeroponics is the method of fertilisation, which is done through aerosolized nutrients, sprayed onto the roots, rather than fed with their water.

How much can you grow in 4 square feet?

Some tower garden systems allow you to grow up to 60 plants in just 4 square feet. That’s much more than could ever be dreamed of in a standard raised bed, and makes any tower garden a good space saving alternative to traditional planters.

Is vermicomposting better than composting?

Vermicomposting has almost identical results to composting, but works much faster, with the added advantage of worm tea, a liquid fertiliser that can be used all over the garden in spring and summer to promote happier, healthier foliage, and more reliable blooms.

What are the disadvantages of aeroponics?

The only real disadvantage of aeroponics is the cost. Aeroponics is quite new to domestic markets, and even in commercial cultivation it is still rare. In time, aeroponics will become cheaper, and once you’ve made the initial investment, it costs roughly the same as hydroponics to run.

Do plants grow faster in aeroponics?

Plants grow around 3 times faster in aeroponics when managed properly. Some systems claim to offer 20x the growth speeds of plants, which may be true, but in most cases, 2-3 times the maturation and fruiting speeds of plants are reasonable to expect.

Can you use garden tower planters indoors?

Garden tower planters can be used indoors or outdoors, but many units are designed for indoor use and do not have weatherproof wiring. Any units with LED lighting or plug-in hydroponic pumps will be better suited to indoor environments, but solar hydroponic or aeroponic systems can be used in all environments.

What type of plants grow best in garden towers?

Leafy vegetables like herbs, microgreens, and brassicas grow best in tower gardens, but with the right nutrients, you can grow fresh fruit, propagate young trees and nurture large veggies like tomatoes, melons, and cucumbers in garden towers.

For a traditional setup, check out our complete guide for garden irrigation systems.