Time to Plant!
Finally, we appear to have passed the point of frost warnings (although it WAS in the 40s last night and may be again tonight), and so I made my first foray into planting my balcony container garden this weekend.
First things first--we went to the Farmers' Market and I picked up a couple of nice, healthy basil plants. I'll probably get one or two more within the next few weeks.
Then I went out to the garden center, where they always have nice (but pricey) plants.
This haul plus the potting soil set me back more than $90!! And this is only enough to plant the balcony boxes and the two window boxes I put outside our west-facing sunroom casements!
You'll notice that there is a singular lack of yellow flowers. I used to buy marigolds to provide some sunny blooms, but they never do well in my boxes. They go nuts on the raised beds on the parkway in front of the building and in the little niches beside our walkway, but they hate my boxes! So I had hoped to find some yellow million bells to vary the color a bit, but no such luck!
Another missing element in this assortment of annuals is the infamous trailing accent plant. A few years ago, I found a bunch of nice creeping jenny plants. Yes, I know. Invasive weeds. Which is probably why they have disappeared from the market. But really, in second-floor balcony boxes they are lovely! Last year I substituted vinca, but I found them to be stringy and annoying. I thought maybe some sweet potato vines, but they were SO expensive at the garden center that I thought I would search them out at Lowes or Home Depot... but again, no such luck. They were all sold out. Sigh. At any rate, the million bells are great trailers and so are the scaevola I placed in the front of the boxes... I just like to have some foliage trailing as well as flowers. Maybe I'll find some in the next few weeks.
I planted them all, with the scaevola, million bells, and lobelia in front, some begonias in the middle, and these weird squiggly leafed coleus bringing up the back (they are supposed to grow to a foot tall). With the next paycheck I'll buy some more plants for all the pots I have tucked away on that balcony, and I'll uncover the lawn chairs so that I can sit and enjoy my little (well, miniscule) urban garden.
First things first--we went to the Farmers' Market and I picked up a couple of nice, healthy basil plants. I'll probably get one or two more within the next few weeks.
Then I went out to the garden center, where they always have nice (but pricey) plants.
This haul plus the potting soil set me back more than $90!! And this is only enough to plant the balcony boxes and the two window boxes I put outside our west-facing sunroom casements!
You'll notice that there is a singular lack of yellow flowers. I used to buy marigolds to provide some sunny blooms, but they never do well in my boxes. They go nuts on the raised beds on the parkway in front of the building and in the little niches beside our walkway, but they hate my boxes! So I had hoped to find some yellow million bells to vary the color a bit, but no such luck!
Another missing element in this assortment of annuals is the infamous trailing accent plant. A few years ago, I found a bunch of nice creeping jenny plants. Yes, I know. Invasive weeds. Which is probably why they have disappeared from the market. But really, in second-floor balcony boxes they are lovely! Last year I substituted vinca, but I found them to be stringy and annoying. I thought maybe some sweet potato vines, but they were SO expensive at the garden center that I thought I would search them out at Lowes or Home Depot... but again, no such luck. They were all sold out. Sigh. At any rate, the million bells are great trailers and so are the scaevola I placed in the front of the boxes... I just like to have some foliage trailing as well as flowers. Maybe I'll find some in the next few weeks.
I planted them all, with the scaevola, million bells, and lobelia in front, some begonias in the middle, and these weird squiggly leafed coleus bringing up the back (they are supposed to grow to a foot tall). With the next paycheck I'll buy some more plants for all the pots I have tucked away on that balcony, and I'll uncover the lawn chairs so that I can sit and enjoy my little (well, miniscule) urban garden.
Labels: Chicago, container gardening, flowers
posted by Cathy VanPatten at 6:32 PM
9 Comments:
I love all of your plants, they are beautiful!
I miss brick, it's so beautiful! My (maternal) family is from (Quincy) Illinois and while I've never been to Chicago my family always tell me of its beautiful architecture...I see from your posts they were 100% correct.
Hey Jenn!
I moved here from San Francisco, where there was not a whole lot of brick aside from facing. Not exactly the best building material for earthquake country!
There are some really lovely buildings in this town, that's for certain!
Hey, if you ever come up this way, let me know--I can give you a lakefront tour!
Your plants and pictures are very pretty!
I also like creeping Jenny. I really didn't realize it was invasive until researching it for a Squidoo lens I recently wrote. I've always kept it in containers and just propagated it from year to year.
I also just learned from your post that creeping Jenny is harder to find than it used to be - I didn't realize that!
Thanks for your post! Kelly
Thanks, Kelly!
I haven't been able to find creeping jenny for a couple of years now, when it was plentiful before that. I really love the way it trails and fills out the front of the boxes. Oh well!
Thanks for stopping by--don't be a stranger!
Pretty!
I'm attempting to garden this year. I'm growing some veggies from seed in the kitchen. I read last week that basil planted near tomatoes will keep a certain type of pest away, so I bought some basil. I left it out on the deck and forgot to water it. Steven came in last night and told me not to buy any more plants because I always manage to kill them.
I reminded him that at least I can keep our animals alive just fine!
Oh, and my basil is not dead; it just got a little dehydrated and droopy. It's much better today, but that's because he watered it for me. Oops.
I can't tell you how many times I've thought my basil was dead as a doornail, and some water just perked it right back up!
And today I actually found some creeping jenny for sale, so it's now in the balcony boxes. Yea!
Mmmmm...basil!
A few years ago I went on a back porch gardening spree--basil, rosemary, tomatoes, wax peppers, habaneros, etc, and learned a few things:
1. Basil is THE Resurrection Plant. Just when I thought it was past the point of no return a little water revived it completely!
2. Hot peppers (at least MY hot peppers) do NOT develop any heat in the Virginia climate; however, non-scorching habaneros with their faint apricot-like aroma and flavor make GREAT salad additions. I'm surprised no one markets them this way.
3. Home-grown tomatoes, even sadly neglected ones, RULE!
4. Non-desert plants do not do well when forgotten for a week.
Hmmm. Maybe I'll try some of those habaneros. If they won't get hot in VA, they sure won't get hot in IL!
Hey! I've got an idea! If we can grow non-searing scotch bonnets we could market 'em as "nadaneros!"
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