my biggest success was finding blue glazed pots, of various shapes and sizes, for all my plants -- my "balcony" is more of a windowsill, so it wasn't to hard, but a student budget is always a limitation. my biggest failure was trying a yellow pear tomato on my fire-escape -- it was torn to shreds in a windy thunderstorm -- and good thing, too, because it was getting so big that i wouldn't have survived had there been a fire. my plan for next year is to find better-looking combos for my windowsill, ones you can really enjoy from the street. (i'm only on the 2nd floor, but my plants were still too small -- sedums and rainlilies.)

what about you?? :)
heidi

Biggest disaster was windowboxes first time around. Dahlias, johnny jump-ups and celosia all fried :-( Had to completely redo the boxes. Second time around, salvia victoria blue and hot pink petunias worked out better (for a while). Also, my vines were too tall for my fence, and towards the end of the summer, were all blooming on my neighbor's side instead of mine :/

Hard to plan for next year, because I think this was an odd year. But I think I will be planning more reliable stuff for the window boxes like maybe zinnias ... not my favorite, but reliable.

I wouldn't say there were any major disasters. The moisture from hurricane remnants may have done in my thyme, the black-eyed susan vine in my hanging basket didn't bloom as well as I'd like, and it took me a couple of tries to get something that worked in the annual planters. But all in all, not too bad.

As for next year, I plan to get some bulbs planted so I'll have some color earlier in the spring, and find something a bit more unique in the way of annual flowers.

Dwarf Pampass in large plastic pots - I was very happy with how large they grew and even a plume on one of them, hope they survive in the garage

Black eyed Susan in large plastic pot w/4 ft trellis - had to keep trimming it at the top, bloomed and bloomed

Blue Heaven morning glories - flowers are so big, the moonflowers seem small

Not So Successful:
Giant Snapdragons - were supposed to grow tall enough to hide the dying oriental foliage, they didn't grow tall enough (luckily, the orientals still good anyway!) and didn't bloom much (grew from seed)

Larkspur - too leggy, bloomed ok but think I'll try delphinium next year

The plant that did the best was a nusery-bought caladium. Plans for next year: johnny jump ups, dragon wing begonias, impatiens, hopefully ivy and whatever else I can grow in shade - ferns maybe?

:-)

With all of the stuff out there, I would say my biggest success was trying a goldflame honeysuckle for the first time, and not only having it bloom all summer with each segment of new growth (there is a bloom out there right now), but having it actually ATTRACT a hummingbird. And we're talking about up on the 18th floor. I haven't seen the hummer in weeks though and I was never quick enough to get the camera out to get a pic of it, but for that week or so when it apparently found my spot was just unbelieveable. I still haven't recovered and have all sorts of plans for next year for any hummers who are interested. I have already grown natural attractants for years out there (weigelas, etc), mainly because I liked those plants. But the honeysuckle hit pay dirt!! Here's what the blooms look like:

The parts of the vine that had grown to the ceiling and bloomed are what the hummer apparently spotted from who knows where. LOL

The other pat on the back success was getting my Sarah Bernhardt peony bought last year, to bloom this year in a container. Of course, as we container gardeners are often told - it's "impossible" and other nonsense. But my little plant (that had 3 buds last year that never opened while still in the original pot) sprouted this spring and produced 5 big blooms after living in its new home:

A closeup of the first flower:

I didn't have a peony hoop when I needed it. LOL But I have one now for next year.

As for disasters, I would say bugs and powdery mildew. Usually I get swamped by aphids but was ready for them early on with some ladybugs that one of my sisters ordered and gave some to me. But aside from not seeing any early aphids this year (nor did I see ants this year - even on my peonies), it was the whiteflies on my tomato plants (first time in my life) and the spider mites on them and on my beautyberry (been there done that with mites but this year was the worst I've ever seen), and of late, mealey bugs - on one hoya and on a gardenia (ARRRGGGG!!). Yeah, I would say the bugs were disasterous this year. Interesting that the spiders were more numerous and I have 2 biggies at each end of the balcony who have spun enormous webs between shrubs and the balcony ceiling and they are cleaning up on the "food gathering" (literally...lol).

And with the PM - gosh, the poor honeysuckle, my peony, and crape myrtle bore the brunt by late summer. The whole peony is now frosty white and the honeysuckle had pretty much defoliated, but is putting out new leaves continually and with those new vinelettes come a flower! I sprayed all sorts of different PM remedies on all of them but just couldn't keep up with it because of the bizarre weather this year. I mean, the temps were very mild as opposed to frying as they can usually get, but the humidity and lack of breezes every once in awhile just made it perfect for PM.

Well, back to planning in what to pot the recent acquisitions and figuring out where to put them. LOL

2. M.G. - One evening I was on my way home from an evening run and I came across 6 or so pots of free morning glories left by a gardening fairy. I took one home and put it in a hanging pot. I didn't have any fishing line so I just used white dental floss. I created a lattice between my top and bottom guardrails. They grew on that for awhile but now they are happily twining around the 1.5" x 1.5" slats of the top guardrail. They are just great!

3. Green pepper plant. My green pepper plant is doing fab-u-lous! I have 2 beautiful peppers on it and a couple more look likely.

4. Mulching - Whoever recommended mulching in your containers is an absolute genius. During our unusually cool summer, I could get by with watering most of my plants every 2 or 3 days.

Failures:

1. Brandywine tomatoes - I put two in a large container and I think the sheer competition for light between the two plants stunted them both. On top of that, Colorado has an extremely uncharacteristic rainy, cool summer (we probably had no more than 2 days that were over 90 all summer). I'm going to give it a go next season with one plant in the large rubbermaid. And I'm going to put in my request for a south-facing apartment!

I'm going shopping for window box type accessories (frames and rectangular planters) for an herb box. I think my MG did so well because the plant basically extended beyond the building and out into all around sun.

So I'm going to go for vining plants and for putting window boxes over the rails. I'm thinking of putting out wintersowing containers into these brackets as well as I have a bunch of seeds (argula, etc.) I'd like to start...but don't feel I have the sunlight to do so.

But my true hope rests on being able to switch to a south-facing apartment so I can grow all of my favorite veggies.

Also, my morning glories did very well on my north-facing balcony. Next year I want all Scarlet O'Haras and Pearly Gates instead of the hodge-podge I had this year, and I need to figure out how to keep them from doubling back and falling over, becoming a tangled mess.

My hanging Pink Carpet rose is still blooming -- also facing north. My daisies (Switzerland) and Blue Princess verbena were a stunning combination.

I had a columbine come up from a plant I haven't seen for three years, but by late in the season it was covered with mildew. Begonias too.

I planted yellow impatiens, and while they grew well and were covered with buds, the buds never opened. I still have hundreds of buds but no blossoms.

I have a gigantic Albo Marginata hosta that is in its 5th year. It's threatening to take over. And my clematises did wonderfully well this year.

In all, it's been a wonderful year. Of course, this year our drought broke, at least in the city. More rain this year than in the last six.

The tomatoes were sad this year, but that was pretty much nation-wide this summer from all the reports I've heard.

I've got Broccoli growing in 3 seperate 15" pots and they're looking great (especially now that it's in the 80's by day and the 50's by night).

I've got next years container garden already planned out with all heirloom varieties of Strawberries (Fresca), Bell Peppers (R,G&Y), Tomatoes (both slicer and Paste) Cucumbers, Broccoli, Dill and Crookneck Summer Squash. :)

Best Wishes
Amino-X

The last couple of years while I've been trying my first pitiful attempts of balcony gardening it has been very hot and dry, for this part of Europe, and plants just kept withering. This summer however was extremely cold and wet, and I've had to drain a couple of my self-watering pots with a plastic tube on several occasions. But I'm not complaining, they really are a good investment!!!

Biggest success this summer I guess would be some oriental lilies I bought, thinking they were white. Turned out they were very pink, and very fragrant. Uh oh and the sad looking clematis "rouge cardinal" I bought last autumn (though the best looking of the ones I could get), turned out to be purple and not red (indicating it probably isn't a "rouge cardinal"), but I don't regret it. It started to bloom early in July, and is still going strong with lots of flowers and buds. And the sedums are of course fantastic as always.

Biggest failure, besides letting the wrong friend look after my plants for two weeks (where he succeeded in underwatering a self-watering container to such a degree that the buds on my very new "bunker hill" peony dried up), was probably the white verbascum. I don't know what happened to it, but it died anyhow. Oh yeah, and some sort of nematodes ate the bulks of my gayfeathers.

Next year I'm planning for a thornless rose, maybe "Zephyrine Drouhin".
The Japanese maple I bought this year isn't doing so well either, I'm thinking on going a bit BANZAI, and turn it into a bonsai, we'll see.