The squeaky wheel ... well you know ... gets oiled! I did a lot of squeaking today. Friday my general contractor informed me that the county needed a few changes on the plans in order for them to issue the (coveted) building permit. What we have here people is a lack of communication. Said contractor took the county's request and plans back to the engineer's office. Someone there told him that they probably didn't need the plans ... so he just left the fix-it request. Friday the engineer (helper?) called me at home and my lovely daughter asked, "Is this a prank call?" and hung up. When I got home she asked, "Do you know a guy named ___?" ... "Yes, I'm expecting an important call from ___." "Oh, (silence) ... I thought he was a prank caller." Needless to say, I wasn't too happy with her ... and after leaving a message for _____ on his answering maching and not getting a return call, I took off to his office this morning with a determination to get to the bottom of this ordeal. I even called the contractor on my cell phone for ___ to talk with. After agreeing that the work would be finished today (which in the past has not been taken seriously), I said I'd return later in the day to pick up my completed plans. Fast forward to 4:30 PM ... arriving at the office, I got a little bit of a brush off (to be expected?) But being determined to get what I was there to get (and already paid plenty for) ... stayed til closing. Did I get what I was after? YES! (At least I hope it's what the county wanted).

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Vinca and Surfinia

I love periwinkles and nearly always have some of them on the balcony in July and August. Their name comes from the Russian apparently – pervinka, meaning first flower. That presumably refers to the little blue creeping ones, Vinca minor. The ones I use, Vinca Rosea, appear in our local garden centre at the beginning of July. They don’t seem to get attacked by pests and diseases and are great for filling in holes left in containers because other things have died. This year though I’ve put them all together, and they’re just a mass of flowers.

But although they’re easy to maintain, I don’t find them easy to grow. I tried again this year using seeds from last years flowers, but failed miserably. The book said to sow in March at about 20° and keep them in the dark for three weeks. That meant in the house, as the temperature outside in March is nowhere near that – especially this year, when we had a long cold winter. So they lived under the bed for a while, but to no avail. It may have been the seed or the method, I’m not sure. I’ll try again next year.

Another “bought” success this year has been my yellow surfinia. I saw it in a roadside florist’s kiosk and couldn’t resist. I’d heard they were delicate, so didn’t have very high hopes, but it’s been wonderful. It’s quadrupled in size and has flowered non-stop, so I’ve spent half the summer dead-heading. I usually prefer ordinary petunias to surfinia, as I’ve found them a bit straggly in the past, but this one is so bushy that I’ve had to change its position – at the beginning I had it on the inside of the balcony, but after a few weeks could hardly get past it. So it’s now trailing over the balustrade. The only thing I hate about it is that, like all petunias, it’s incredibly sticky. The grower who manages to develop a non-sticky petunia is set to make a fortune ….

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On Zinnias and Peanuts

But let’s start with the successes … This year I’ve been really proud of my zinnias and my hollyhocks. The zinnias came from seeds taken from one small plant which I bought last year, and have done extremely well. Our conditions suit them down to the ground – hot sun, limy water... I also tried a trick I’d read about in one of my gardening books – peanut shells in the earth to aerate the soil and provide a gradual, non-nitrogen rich fertiliser. It seems to have worked.

I was also really pleased with my Hollyhocks. They were an experiment as I got the seeds from England and wasn’t sure if they’d take kindly to being pot bound, or to the temperatures here. But they’ve been wonderful. I had three – pale lemon, pale pink and a wonderful colour which isn’t mauve, isn’t purple, isn’t red and isn’t pink, but is somehow all of those rolled into one. They’ve been flowering for weeks, and though they’re now past their best are still forming buds. They lost a few lower leaves to red spider mite early on in the year, but since I dealt with that haven’t had a single problem.

I'd never seen hollyhocks in Milan before I
planted mine, but this year there’s been a glorious display of them growing along the tram lines near Piazza Cinque Giornate. There’s no way they could have got there by chance – someone wanting to brighten up the city must have scattered the seeds. And they were wonderful –about 30 of them in every colour you could imagine. Some of their seeds are now germinating on my back balcony ….

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Today I went to the flooring showroom. I've got the carpet and wood flooring selected, but wanted a few more choices for vinyl bathroom floors. We've had tile and/or marble floors for the past 19 years, and now that we're living in a colder winter climate, we opted for a nice vinyl ... it will stay warmer on the tootsies and the selection these days is quite nice ... not your grandma's vinyl flooring. There was a glitch in the county building permit that needed a change with the engineering firm ... drats! Hope they get to it this coming week as just about everything is falling into place. Even the interest rates have dropped a bit. Everything is in the Good Lord's hands.
Photo: Sample of vinyl, wood and carpet selected. The wood is oak with some knots and a slight to medium grain color variation. It should look well even if it get's a bit distressed from Nathan. I'm a neutral kind of person and try to throw in color with accent pieces. Learned a long time ago that you may not like peach or blue tile and/or grout 5 years later! The carpet has flecks of jewel tones, but overall is beige. Click on photo to enlarge.

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Problems, problems ...

Gardening without a garden is not easy ....

Firstly, lack of space. Where do you put your seeds and your cuttings? If you want to grow bulbs, biennuals and perennials where do you put the plants which aren't in flower to make space for those which are? And when you've finally got every inch crammed with plants, how do you get a chair in so you can sit and enjoy them?

Secondly, the position of the sun. I have an east facing balcony and a west facing balcony, so the plants on each only ever receive light from one direction and inevitably all end up craning desperately away from the house. Containers can be turned around of course, but this can be difficult if you have trailing plants which are just too big to have on the inside of an average sized balcony - mine is only about a metre across.

The amount of sun is also a problem. My balconies are each out of direct sunlight for twenty two hours out of every twenty four, as there are other tall buildings on both sides. But when the sun does hit, the balconies are a sun trap. We're in Italy and in the afternoon on the west facing balcony, the temperature can soar for a short period to over 55°C. The balcony sides are opaque glass, and plants can easily scorch.

Then, there's the lack of rain. This not only means that everything has to be watered by hand, with tap water that has an extremely high calcium content, but also that leaves don't get washed naturally. They get dusty and grimy (Milan is not renowned for its clean air) and need cleaning so they can breathe. And pests which love dry conditions, such as red spider mite, have a field day. (If you stick with me, you'll hear a lot more about red spider mite).

If you're a balcony gardener, you'll probably be able to add to the list. Gardening books don't seem to help much - they seem to ignore the specific problems and presume you're content to buy pre-grown plants from the garden centre at the beginning of the season and throw them away at the end. Or more likely in the middle when they're attacked by insects, or mould or whatever. Pretty maybe, but it destroys most of the fun.

So, here's the alternative guide to balcony gardening - problems, solutions, successes and failures. Usually mostly failures, to be honest. But probably some other quirky stuff in between. And photos - if I can ever find out how to put them on ....

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Try, try, try to not have to re-do or return something when building a new home. The hassles are great and sometimes cost additional $. I got blessed today and was able to exchange an undelivered kitchen range, but it was a big hassle. We orignially were going to go all electric with the building of our new home. Then about a week ago, decided to go ahead and install the gas lines just in case we opted to change out some appliances later on ... or for a good resale selling point (believe me, we're not thinking of selling our home). Our original kitchen range was from LG and had a glass cooktop/covnvection oven. Nothing wrong with this choice, but my cast iron skillets are a big no-no against the glass. I was starting to feel sad about my original choice and opted to return the range in exchange for a duel fuel Jenn-Air double oven. Of course, it's in white! I'm getting excited to start cooking on it :)

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Some facts about siding: In our area of the country, the predominant siding is a lapboard type or rustic wood. There's not much in the way of brick, stone or stucco, except for some skirting or trim. Older rock homes can be found out on the prairie that used field or river stones for all four walls. In the lapboard category, we have vinyl, cement fiberboard, wood, and steel that I know about. There are advantages and disadvantages to all. Vinyl has a limited life and can be damaged by cold weather as it becomes brittle, and it's the least expensive. Cement fiberboard has to be prepped and then painted; it's less expensive than real wood, but somewhat expensive. It can sometimes be a problem where caulking is used, but you can paint it any color and it's pretty much fire and termite resistant. Galvanized steel is a newer product to our area for siding and comes prefinished and is seamless, and even looks like wooden lapboard siding ... but you have to stick with the color you choose and costs about the same as the cement. When you compound researching just one area, then multiply that by all the major elements of the home, you can see where the confusion comes in. Today, dh and I went driving around our new neighborhood and a few others and the only thing we noticed was everyone's siding. That one's vinyl, that is wood, oh, there's steel, etc. Everytime I drive anywhere now, I notice SIDING. Next it will be everyone's windows. At least I think we have finally made up our minds and will be going with the steel. Here are a few photos of homes around our property that have steel. You'd never know it except for the nice crisp lines and seamless application. It's a better choice for us and will mean less maintenance in the retirement years.

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