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Starting A Balcony Garden
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Posted by allibeth68 7 MD (My Page) on Tue, Aug 16, 05 at 8:31
| Hello everyone I am just looking to start my own balcony garden. Any tips to share would be appreciated. I have a pretty large balcony that gets great a lot of sun during the day and lots of shade during the evening hours. I also have places to hang plants and plenty of room on the floor of the balcony to have potted plants. Thanks. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Starting A Balcony Garden
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- Posted by VGtar z7 copenhagen (My Page) on
Thu, Aug 18, 05 at 13:46
| Hi Allibeth, and welcome to the forum! Wow... It sounds like you have the perfect space for a perfect set-up! Since you have plenty of room on the floor, advice #1 would be BIG POTS! -The bigger the pot, the less you need to water.
Advice #2: Adding Soil Moist or other water-retaining chrystals to your soil. They cut down your watering in half.
Advice #3: Mulching. If you mulch the top of your pots, less water will evaporate during the warm summerdays. It also helps protect your perenials during the winter, by acting as insulation over the plant (more delicate perenials need a blanchet or something else as well).
Advice #4: Don't believe people who tell you, that you can't grow this and that in a container... Anything can grow in a container, given the right conditions (I'll probably end up in a cat fight for saying this, but you can probably grow more things in container gardens, than in an in-ground garden). Besides, it's a lot more fun to water plants that you like, raher than something you think is hiddeous.
Advice #5: Stay around the balcony- and container forum. It surely has made MY balcony garden a whole lot nicer!!! |
RE: Starting A Balcony Garden
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| Thank you SO much for welcoming me to the forum. A friend that posts here told me about it and I have been lurking and picking up tips since. Wow great tips and I 'll keep them in mind. That's what I was going to ask about putting potted plants on the ground because my balcony is HUGE and I want to kinda make it more cozy looking. Again thanks for your help and I will be printing this out to take with me when I go to the plant nursery next week. |
RE: Starting A Balcony Garden
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| Hello and welcome. I started my first balcony garden this past summer and I am having a blast with it! I have so many different types of flowers growing on my balcony deck, I have morning glory's, moonflowers, 4 o'clocks, petunias, nasturtiums, clematis, etc. I even started my tomatoes on my balcony in 5 gallon containers but eventually moved them down into my yard due the fact that they were growing so big and overpowering my deck. It's a lot of fun and I look forward to hearing all about your balcony garden. Linda |
RE: Starting A Balcony Garden
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| Best of luck, Allibeth, with your new balcony garden. It DOES sound like a wonderful spot. My balcony is way up high and is only 22ft.long and 7feet wide. I have all shade except for strong sun on one end until 1:00PM. I have a Japanese maple that is having a bit of a struggle with sunburn on one end, and everything else is Host and Ferns. I am thinking of planting another, but sturdier, maple in the Fall.I wonder if you had thought of planting a tree on your balcony along with all the other wonderful and colorful perenniels that you are going to plant. Best wishes, Marion |
RE: Starting A Balcony Garden
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| Hi alliebeth and welcome! I have a 40ft long balcony and it is pretty much full. LOL Lots of shrubs, perennials, and tropicals (that come inside for winter), plus some annuals in my windowboxes and other assorted spots. If you hang around here long enough, you will end up watering your plants with a hose through the window from inside because you won't be able to walk down the length of it. LOL As it is, I often have to go from one end to the other from inside as I fortunately have 2 sets of doors to go out there. I usually go to a nursery and get hit with what we term here "PJIC" ("Plants Jump Into the Cart or Car") and home it comes with me... Afterwhich I end up doing alot of net research on it if I'm not familar with its care. I usually try to aim for plants hardy 1 - 2 zones lower than where I am and that will minimize or eliminate a need to have to protect the containers. Is your balcony covered or not? That makes a difference in many cases - particularly with watering and availability of sun (overhead). Plus, which way does it face? |
RE: Starting A Balcony Garden
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Here's some tips, some of which were mentioned but are worth repeating:
-make the most of your space by using lots of hanging baskets, window boxes, and plant stands (which let you have a plant high on the stand and a plant at its base in the same amount of room)
-grow more than one plant in the same container (which looks good and also saves space)
-mulch your container plants (Lowe's has hardwood mulch in a big bag for $2.22 and that goes a very long way with container plants)
-if you want to add height but don't have space for width (such as shrubs and trees would add), plant vines
-since you're in zone 7, plants that are hardy to zone 6 and lower have the best chances of surviving your winters (plastic pots instead of clay will also help the plants to be less cold) Good luck! : ) |
RE: Starting A Balcony Garden
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| Thanks everyone SO much for your tips. LOL! The folks at the nursery teased me the other week when they saw me bring in some more of my sheets of tips from the board. But they DID say I was receiving excellent advice. It's much appreciated. |
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