Other People's Balconies

While I was on holiday, I spent a lot of time wandering around and looking at other people’s balconies, in search of ideas. We were in a small seaside town in the north east of Italy (head for Venice and keep going east towards Slovenia), an ex fishing village where tourism is now the main industry. There were loads of hotels and restaurants with container plants growing out front on their terraces, as well as lots of private houses and apartment blocks. These hibiscus, and lots more like them, were waiting for me as I left our hotel every morning.

The one plant you couldn’t miss was Dipladenia. It was everywhere and clearly flourishing in the hot, sunny conditions. I love it. I’m never sure whether Dipladenia and Mandevilla are the same plant or different. Some books seem to list them together, others separately. I always think of them as different. I really wanted to get a Dipladenia this year, but couldn’t find it in my local garden centre and got a Mandevilla instead (see Aug 6).

As well as looking at individual plants though, I was also looking at colour schemes, with my Aug 9 post in mind. A lot of people had gone for one colour and one plant only. They often looked great, but I always had the feeling that there was a “businessperson” behind them, more interested in making his or her premises look attractive than really having any real interest in gardening.

The same was true of some of the bi-coloured arrangements too, though I have to admit that the mass of purple and white surfinias on all the balconies of this hotel was pretty impressive.

In general though, my favourites were the less obvious combinations. This pairing of blue plumbago and red begonias was nice, and I fell in love with the violet flowers and bi-coloured leaves of this hebe paired with the deep, deep red of these pelargoniums.




But of all the combinations, this little corner in the old part of the town was the one that really won me over. There’s nothing unusual about either the colour scheme or the plants, but they just looked so happy and full of life that I couldn’t resist them. They’re now on my computer desktop, and greet me every day as I struggle, very reluctantly, to get back to work ….

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Before and After

The one thing you can’t do if you’ve got a balcony garden is go away and leave it unattended in summer, and expect it to look the same when you get back. Even a short holiday of ten days, like I’ve just had, is asking for trouble. I have the same problem every year – first of all I don’t know anyone here who really enjoys gardening, and would take it on for me, and – even if I did – as everyone goes on holiday at more or less the same time in Italy, they’d probably be away too.

So I have to rely on a very uninterested plant-sitter to water for me, and just forget about the possibilities of pests and diseases. And I know what I will find when I get back – pots saturated and standing in three inches of water, and plants either drowned completely or so weakened that they’re easy targets for anything that wants to eat them. I swear every year that I’m going to invest in an automatic watering system and next year I really must get round to it ….

This year, as I was only away for a relatively short time, it wasn’t too bad. The worst hit were the marigolds. If you look back to August 9 you can see what they were like when I left. This is what I came back to ….

The Revenge of the Red Spider Mite. Obviously I’ve had to yank out and throw away the ones that were this bad, but I’m hoping that about 50% will make it. I’ve cut off the worst-affected lower parts and will spray the rest. But this morning there were so many butterflies on the balcony that I couldn’t. Here’s one on one of the antirrhinums. Does anyone know what type it is? Its caterpillars are small and green.

And a lot of butterflies obviously means a lot of caterpillars. I’ve lost several plants with others looking decidedly tattered, but nothing that isn’t duplicated elsewhere on the balcony. I shall do a caterpillar hunt later and move them out of harm's way before I start to spray.

Another casualty has been my New Guinea Impatiens. The photo on the right was taken shortly before the holiday ….

...and this is what it looked like yesterday.

It’s been hit by powdery mildew. I washed as much of it off as possible by spraying with milk and then wiping the leaves clean. And then resprayed the whole plant. We shall see. If it doesn’t work I may have to resort to a chemical fungicide.

Before I left, I’d sprayed one of my begonias with milk to try and ward off rust. Unfortunately I can’t tell you if it worked as it’s succumbed to over-enthusiastic watering and the stems have rotted away. I’m sure I’ll get another chance to try it out before long though.

I’ve also lost a number of seedlings through damping off, though the ones which were already well established are doing well. And talking of seedlings, the ones in the photo in the last post were, in the centre antirrhinum, and then going from one o’clock in a clockwise direction : foxglove, lychnis, hollyhock, bellis, forget-me-not, honesty and stock.

The final plant, at twelve o’clock, is the mystery plant. I suspect it’s a type of erigeron, though it’s not like the ones you normally see in gardening books. I got the seeds from a plant growing in a rockery garden. It produces a thick, almost woody stem and trails along the ground or over the rocks. And produces a profusion of daisy type flowers with pink petals and a large yellow centre. It was in a position that got very little rain, so obviously likes dry conditions. You couldn’t see it very well in the last picture so here’s another one. Any ideas??

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Today began day one for construction and near the end the garage, crawlspace, driveway, and part of the basement were dug. There is a lot of nice topsoil with some clay mix beneath ... just a tiny little bit of shale type rock that was eventually dug up. Next week they should pour the cement forms.

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We have liftoff! A for sure real green light to start building ... the actual building permit ... issued by the county ... just yesterday! Amen ... and THANK YOU LORD! When my builder called me yesterday afternoon and said he had been in the county building permit office for over two hours waiting for them to issue the permit ... well, lets just say I almost fainted! My dh had all but stopped asking me when he'd call to check on the family how the progress was coming along ... quit asking about the permit all together. Earlier this week, with the hope of the permit, the builder had made arrangements with his excavation crew to be ready next week to start "grubbing" out the land, digging the basement hole, and grading the area for the driveway. Oh, I must remember to go up there today and pick the huckleberries before they're disturbed ... don't worry, we have lots that won't get plowed under. We should have to only take down one tree and a snag (dead lopped off tree); which makes us happy to keep the beautiful existing trees. Oh, happy day!
Photo of property

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Mirabilis Jalapa

I’ve grown Mirabilis jalapa (Beauty of the Night or The 4 o’clock Flower) for the first time this year and it’s recently started flowering. I’ve been a bit disappointed so far as it’s a tall plant with quite small flowers, and they’ve been coming out one at a time. It only blooms in the evening, and the flowers only last one night, so one or two per evening are not very impressive. However, yesterday it did this – different coloured flowers on the same plant! I checked and it’s quite common with this type of plant, but I hadn’t realised it was possible – does anyone know of any other flower which does the same?

I’ve got six plants all together, and they’re now a mass of buds, so I guess they’ll come out in force in the next couple of weeks – a pity, as I’ll be on holiday and will miss them. The holiday also means I won’t be blogging for a while, so I thought I’d leave you with this … the photo below is a selection of some of the seedlings I’m bringing on at the moment. Can you recognise them? I have to admit I have a sneaky reason for asking – there’s one which I don’t know the name of, though I know what the plant and flowers eventually look like. If anyone can identify it, I’ll be really pleased.

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The end of yet another week and still no construction. This "productive" week found me checking with the county on my permit ... they yet have issued the PAPER to begin building. Seems there was a question about a beam in the foundation or basement area ... of course, that meant another trip to my favorite engineers ... whom happened to be on vacation. Such efficiency! So I busied myself with selecting windows, interior doors and knobs, trim molding for doorways, baseboards, and windows. I also checked out some nice freestanding gas (wood type) stoves that can be used as supplemental heat in the winter. After watching my pop buy/haul/cut and stack wood for their heat the past twenty years, I'll be happy with the gas version. Yes, I know the wood is the real deal ... but not in my golden years, pleeeze! Here's one of the stoves I'm considering ... along with the windows selected.

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Bulgy Bottoms

I’ve been having fun growing melons this year. They’re one of those plants which seem to shoot out of the ground so fast you can almost see them growing, and the foliage and flowers are both so nice that they blend in well with the other stuff on the balcony. I put them in a bit late and I’m not sure if the fruit will have time to grow and ripen – depends a bit how warm September is, but this year was really just an experiment to see how well they do in containers. It seems to have worked, so now of course I wish I’d started earlier. But I’ll get myself better organised next year.

I had a bit of a problem at first deciding which were the male and which the female flowers. There were some very clear diagrams in one of my gardening books – the ones with the bulgy bottoms were female. But when the flowers started coming through they all looked the same to me – no bulgy bottoms at all.

After about a week muttering about misleading gardening books, I finally found a couple of females. And sure enough, they looked just like the diagrams. I’ve checked since, and apparently the male flowers usually come through first. I suppose it guarantees that the pollen is available when the females finally arrive. We do get a few bees on the balcony, but I raided my son’s paintbrushes and hand-pollinated just in case, and now have three or four baby melons developing.

Male flower .....

.... and female flower

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