If you’re an outdoor grower, you face some unique challenges that indoor growers rarely need to deal with. Yes, bugs and weather are constant hazards, but one of the biggest threats outdoor gardens face doesn’t come from nature, but from other people. Stealth is crucial for any outdoor grow, and in this post, we’ll cover some out-of-the-box ideas to camouflage your grow.
Benefits Of Camouflaging Outdoor Grows
Growing weed outdoors by itself has plenty of wonderful pros. It’s cheap and generally requires less work than indoor grows, since your primary light source is a giant ball of nuclear flame: the sun. Outdoor gardens will save you thousands of dollars in the long run, since you won’t need to buy grow lamps or pay for energy. They’re not perfect, though – outdoor grows are much more likely to be discovered than indoor ones.
That’s why it’s important to camouflage your outdoor grow. Stealth grows can deter would-be thieves from stealing your plants, prevent nosey neighbors from blowing your cover, and let you use outdoor conditions for the better health and growth of your plants.
The Best Ways To Hide Outdoor Marijuana Plants Using Camouflage
There are several different stealth outdoor grow ideas you can use to keep your grow low-key. Green fencing mesh and fabric flowerpots can hide your plants, while training techniques like ScrOGging, LST, and defoliation can lower the profile of your garden. Let’s learn the details.
Green Fencing Mesh
Green fencing mesh is a simple and surefire way to camouflage your weed plants. It’s super common, being a regular sight in both rural and urban areas. As a result, this method is unlikely to arouse suspicion from even the nosiest neighbor. Green fencing mesh is an effective marijuana camouflage, adept at keeping intruders and snoops out while still allowing sunlight to reach your plant.
Another great thing about fencing mesh is that it’s great for keeping your plants from overheating when the weather gets too hot – a two birds with one stone type of situation.
ScrOG
This marijuana camo technique involves hiding your plants in plain sight. Any home with a walled balcony and plenty of sunlight can ScrOG their plants, keeping them below the lip of the wall. You can use this technique on a balcony or anywhere else where you may have a small wall for cover. All you need to do is get some plastic trellis mesh and ScrOG your plants.
This technique does require a bit of work, though. As your plants grow, you’ll need to check on them and wrap them around your trellis. This will redirect them to grow horizontally instead of vertically, keeping them out of sight. You’ll also need to top your plants to prevent them from getting too tall. To learn everything you need to know about ScrOgging, check out this article.
LST
If you don’t have enough room to use ScrOGging for marijuana camo, you can try low-stress training (LST) instead. For this technique, you need to tie the main stem of young plants down to the side of your pot. This will allow more light to reach the center of your plant, focusing on bulking up the plant’s lower buds instead of sending all of its energy to the top of your main cola. This will improve your overall yield and allow you to craft your plant into any shape you desire. If you’re interested in applying LST to your cannabis plants, you’ll find this guide very helpful.
Defoliation
Defoliation for maintaining a stealth outdoor grow isn’t the same as doing so to improve yields. While defoliation for regular grows involves removing entire fan leaves, stealthy outdoor growers need to be more creative. Instead of removing entire leaves, use a pair of scissors to remove the telltale traits of weed leaves. For example, you can cut all of the fingers off your plants except for one or remove serrated edges from leaves, making them appear dull and flat.
Although you don’t want to remove too many leaves early in the plant’s lifecycle, once you reach the late flowering stage, you can get aggressive with defoliation. Late in a plant’s flowering stage, you can even remove all of your fan leaves, making your cannabis almost unrecognizable. Find out more about defoliation here.
Fabric Flowerpots
Fabric flowerpots help lower the overall height of your marijuana camo garden, making it more difficult for passersby to spot. Since fabric flowerpots allow roots to grow through them, you can put your weed plants directly into the ground. This will lower your plant’s overall height by about 20 inches (50cm). Then, you can use green fencing mesh to hide the rest of your plant from view if necessary. Fabric flowerpots are particularly useful for guerilla growing or growing weed plants in a public place.
Other Plants
We’ve all heard about hiding marijuana in tomato plants, the latter of which look quite similar to weed plants. That’s because one creative way that stealth outdoor cultivators have to hide their crops is by mixing weed with other plants. Several different types of flowers offer various benefits to the enterprising guerilla grower. Below, we’ll look at the advantages that seven different strains can bestow on a stealth weed garden.
Staghorn Sumac
This plant’s appearance, with long, fernlike leaves, makes it appear fairly common in the wild. As the plant matures, it displays a robust form that’s easy to trim to customize its appearance. Staghorn sumac’s long, finger-shaped leaves appear similar to marijuana, so the two are fairly indistinguishable from one another. In addition to its leaves, Staghorn sumac’s reddish budding flowers are starkly similar to the cola of cannabis plants, making it for great marijuana camo. Staghorn sumac also looks similar to poison sumac, which may help drive away any would-be snoops.
Ragweed
Ragweed and its cousin, giant ragweed, are two of the most common plants in the world. They tend not to attract interest, appearing as just another weed in the bushes. It features many-fingered leaves like cannabis does, and in many instances, young weed plants and ragweed plants are indistinguishable. Ragweed is best utilized in a stealth outdoor grow when it’s placed near a fence or corner, effectively blocking weed plants from view.
Pride Of Madeira
Out of all the plants on this list, pride of Madeira might be one of the best for marijuana camo grows. Its flower structure resembles a cola even more than sumac does. It’s particularly hardy and can thrive in a wide array of environments. One benefit of this plant aside from the marijuana camouflage that it provides is its general appearance. Pride of Madeira is visually stunning, and will help any garden pop regardless of the presence of cannabis. As an extra bonus, this plant is fairly inexpensive and easy to find in stores and online.
Cleome
Cleomes make another great choice for cultivators who want to introduce visually appealing flowers into their stealth outdoor grow. It grows low, bushy, and wide, making it great for covering low-growing strains like Indicas and autoflowers. You can use this same logic to cover up Sativa strains that have been adequately ScrOGged. Like pride of Madeira, cleome seeds are easy to find for enterprising guerilla gardeners.
Lupin
Also known as lupine, the lupin family features hundreds of descendants. Regardless of their genetics, they all look fairly similar. Like Staghorn sumac, lupin closely resembles cannabis. However, its leaves aren’t serrated, so consider cutting the leaves of your weed plants to help them blend in a stealth outdoor grow. Lupin’s natural colors make it ideal for hiding purple-hued cannabis strains like Grand Daddy Purp.
Stinging Nettle
Stinging nettle sends one message loud and clear: stay away. They look fairly innocuous, but their bite is much worse than their bark. Contact with these nasty plants can leave a stinging, irritated feeling over the affected area. Stinging nettles make a great addition to a camo garden, since they look like weed already. Use stinging nettles along with other plants to create a multi-pronged defense system that will keep away all but the nosiest interlopers.
Mixed Plants And Flowers
Countless other plants are likewise adept at hiding plants in a camo garden. Thorns, prickers, and other sharp plants can keep unwanted animals out of your grow. Wildflowers that grow naturally in your geographical region are also a great choice, since they won’t arouse suspicion. Sunflowers, bamboo, sugarcane, and corn also make great garden guardians thanks to their tall height. Remember: you don’t always want plants that look like weed. Instead, you want an array of flowers that will hide your garden.
Fake Flowers
Finally, fake flowers can provide a great way to add stealth to a grow. They provide all of the benefits of using plants for a camo garden without any of the responsibility of actually taking care of them. A basic planter with some fake flowers can do wonders for a clandestine grow. Additionally, it’s a great idea to put some fake blooms on top of your cannabis plants to make them look like something else. Bright flowers aren’t associated with cannabis bushes, so this trick works perfectly in keeping undue attention away.
A Combination Of Methods
To maximize your grow’s effectiveness, you can use more than one of these methods. For example, use brightly-colored flowers with five leaves to help your plants blend into your camo garden visually. Then, include sharp plants like stinging nettles to drive away any unwanted wildlife that gets too close. Hide parts of your garden with green mesh and use fabric flowerpots to keep your weed closer to the ground. You can also use other common items to hide your garden such as wood, compost, and lawnmowing equipment – your only limit is your imagination.
Clandestine Cultivation
If you want to grow weed but don’t have the appropriate land hidden from the gaze of others, a camo garden can make all the difference. Anything is possible as long as you’re smart about concealing your garden. With the proper planning and strategy, you can cultivate a clandestine, guerilla grow hidden in plain sight, charged by the sun.
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