Mini-Daffs & Tulips in pots on the balcony railings

Mini-Daffs & Tulips in pots on the balcony railings

I planted some Mini-Daffs & Tulips in pots on the balcony railings in mid-October after removing the Begonias that had grown in them all summer a few days before.

I had bought some packets of small Narcissi bulbs & dwarf Tulips precisely to put in these :

but I also put some in the troughs on the bar that goes around the middle of the balcony railings.

As I have 3 troughs I planted them all exactly the same so I’ve added photos of all 3 troughs showing how I put short stemmed Tulips, mini-Daffs &, finally, Crocuses on top but only one of each trough:

I have planted up the 8 clay pots I have, 2 of them new, as well as 2 plastic pots & have put them in the aluminium rings I bought & used many years ago in Spain when we used to live over there:

At the present moment I don’t have any Pansies or Violas to overplant them with as I do every year. I hope to get some soon from the open air market in town.

Other years I’ve bought them there & they have done pretty well though I’ve had little success with them for the last few years. Several years they were infested with a heavy plague of tiny, itsy bitsy grey-white aphids that cover every green surface & suck the life out of the plants.

I mentioned this last year to the lady on the stall, when I was buying last year’s plants, & she assured me it wouldn’t happen again this year as all their plants are treated with a systematic insecticide before leaving the greenhouse.

In effect they didn’t become infested but they died mysteriously in the spring before they had chance to flower but I’ve absolutely have no idea of the cause! They just collapsed as if their roots had been eaten away or they had rotted away. On removing them I broke open the rootballs but they weren’t rotting nor did I find any sign of anything eating their roots, the rootballs were chock a block of roots. The only symptom I noticed was that they collapsed & turned brown. I hope that doesn’t happen again. They had been planted in new compost: I’d renewed the compost in all my pots & troughs last year before autumn planting.

I also planted up the 3 big, white troughs on the balcony floor, up against the railings. I put long stemmed Tulips & Daffodils in them & overplanted them with a few Crocuses from the last 2 years that had survived. Many of the Daffs will be quite small I think as many of them didn’t appear to be of flowering size. I’ll have to wait & see what happens.

When I get some plants to put in I’ll post a last photo here.

… on the last day of (September) summer

… on the last day of (September) summer

I imagine you all know the nursery rhyme song about the The Big Ship Sails on The Ally-Ally-Oh (on the last day of September), well that is where I get my inspiration for the title of this blog!

This being a gardening forum I’m not about to talk about ships or the months of the year – no, not even the seasons (though these do concern us gardeners quite a bit!)

No, I want to show you the balcony I garden on & from where my avatar name derives.

So here is a view on our balcony as you might have seen it if you had walked past it yesterday (or today or tomorrow for that matter!):

Balcony as seen from the street on the last day of summer 20th September 2016:

Here are some other views taken at the same time as the first one:

Balcony seen from the right hand side:

Balcony seen from the centre:

Balcony seen from the left hand side:

Begonias flowering on balcony railings from the inside:

Trailing Begonias Apricot and Salmon pink on balcony railings:

Dahlia ‘Diablo’ on balcony floor seen from outside:

Dianthus chinensis: China Pink ‘Baby Doll’ on balcony railings:

Carnation (florist red) flowering on balcony railings:

I call this “florist red” because it came originally from a couple of cuttings from a bunch of red Carnations our daughter bought her mum when she lived with us after returning from Spain.

Fuchsia in strawberry planter on balcony:

Fuchsia red and white on balcony floor:

Fuchsia Purple & white in hanging basket on balcony:

Variegated Geraniums ‘Vancouver Centennial’ on balcony:

This is one Geranium a really love!

Gladiolus flowering on balcony railings:

A Gladiolus corm somehow found its way into the trough that sits in the centre of the balcony railings. When I first noticed it it was too late to do anything about it. I was surprised when I saw a flower spike was developing! But, as you can see, it grew & flowered very well & wasn’t broken down by the wind as I fully expected to happen!

Lavatera flowering on balcony:

These are seedlings that I never found space for in the pots, tubs & troughs on the balcony! They have grown & flowered in the same little pots I put them in when I did the first transplant!

There are half a dozen little pots of the red florist Carnations I rooted in the seedtray with the Lavateras. I find this Carnation a doodle to root!

But I don’t just grow flowers I also grow tomatoes! In fact I’ve grow a few plants almost every year of the 15 years we have lived in this flat & I’ve been gardening on this balcony!

Here are a few photos of the yellow cherry tomatoes that are growing on the balcony this year:

Yellow cherry tomatoes ripening on balcony:

Tomatoes seen from behind the Begonias on the balcony railings from outside:

I have enough plants on my balcony to make up a 2nd blog! One of the difficulties is that it is almost impossible to get a decent photo of most of them together as I can’t move away far enough so I can only take partial photos. Look at the two of the Begonias, I took one from the left side & one from the right side yet not all the 13 pots of Begonias are visible in the two photos!

I expect that many of you wonder at the strings you can see in the photos of the balcony – well, wonder no more, here’s the answer:

Morning Glory climbing up chicken wire:Morn

Morning Glory climbing up strings:

Early in the morning on the first day of autumn 2016:

Now we have started the autumn I think I can safely say the summer of 2016 is well & truly over for this year!

Brilliant Fuchsias

Brilliant Fuchsias

The Fuchsias growing on our balcony are doing brilliantly! It’s been several years since I last grew Fuchsias on the balcony & then I had them in the 5 hanging baskets, I’d like to show at least one photo from then but they are all locked away on the HDD of my old computer & I have no access to them for the moment.

This time I bought 3 trays, 4 to a tray, of small plants from the ‘Society For The Blind’ charity shop in town.

Bush Fuchsias just bought for balcony:

I have no idea of what varieties they might be but they have been flowering brilliantly for some months.

I planted them in 3 small troughs, 3 to a trough, on the centre bar around the middle of the balcony railings. As I had 3 left over I put them in other pots on the balcony floor.

I like Fuchsias very much but it can be difficult to keep them over winter as we live in a small flat & there’s not sufficient room to keep them inside during the coldest periods of the winter. I just keep them dry & in their pots on a big, round table in the most sheltered corner of the balcony. I also keep other borderline hardy plants there as well, like Geraniums (Zonal) & Pelargoniums. The 3 types of plant can survive the cold of winter if they are kept dry & protected from the winds. So I will try to keep these alive for next year there as well.

1: Fuchsias & Lobelias on the balcony railings from outside:

2: Fuchsias & Miniature roses in trough on balcony railings seen from outside:

3: Close up of Fuchsia in hanging basket on balcony:

This particular Fuchsia came in this small basket which my brother gave me. Neither he nor I realised the “dead twigs” were a Fuchsia when he gave me it. In fact the basket was full of what I thought might be herbs but, as they seemed practically dead, I put a couple of trailing Begonias in it & they have done extremely well!

4: Fuchsia flowering in strawberry planter on balcony:

5: Fuchsias flowering in green pot on balcony:

6: Fuchsias on balcony from outside:

7: Fuchsias flowering in trough on balcony railings:

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These are the very latest photos which I took on 29th August 2015:

8: Fuchsias on balcony railings:

9: Fuchsias on balcony railings:

10: Fuchsias on balcony railings with Geranium ‘Black Prince’:

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11: I even have a “climbing” Fuchsia ‘Lady Boothby’ on the balcony:

Although I’ve had it 3 or 4 years it has never done very well – in fact I think this year it’s doing better than the previous years – yet it is only now starting to flower for the first time this year & we’re almost into September!

12: Last, but not least, a photo of the strawberry planter with a Fuchsia growing in the top:

Spring flowers on my balcony

Spring flowers on my balcony

I thought I would make a blog with the Spring flowers that are open on my balcony today. I’ve included a photo of the balcony as seen on coming up the short path to the entrance way. You will also find a couple of photos of one of my Amaryllis that I have grown from seed, this is it’s 2nd year in flower.

Here is what they looked like just under a month ago:

Hope you like these few photos of what is in flower on my balcony right now:
You can see below what my balcony looks like as you come up the entrance path to the entrance of our block of flats:

Here are a few photos of my Amaryllis that I have grown from seed:

Well that will do for now – I need to keep a few back after all! Hope you enjoy these photos of some of the wonderful plants that can be found in flower right this moment!

Fab Feb Favs

Fab Feb Favs

I just want to make a blog with some of my Fabulous February Favourites!

I’m starting with my balcony as it shows some of my Fab Feb Favs like Crocuses, Pansies & Violas! These brave & colourful little plants can be relied upon to put up a great show every February.

The following four photos, all of which I took today, show the 3 white planters which have lots of Pansies & some Crocuses, which have started to open this week:

The first few Crocuses have opened now in this pot. The confer has been underplanted with small bulbs for several years:

I love to underplant Violas/Pansies in the clay pots on my balcony railings with small bulbs, most often Crocuses

On my way into town this morning I changed my usual route a little & instead of going through the all the shops I went along the path beside Huntingdon Town Park.

As I began to go along the path I noticed a clump of Snowdrops:

I went into the park & spied more clumps:

In this last photo you can see little clumps all alongside the bank of the Brook, which on occasions floods the park. In a couple of weeks time they will look better.

As it was such a lovely sunny day today I took this photo:

I saw these Winter Aconites, looking for all the world like a bunch of Buttercups amongst the dead leaves & the grass! They are amongst the very first I’ve seen this year so far – at least!

Well these are some of my Fab Feb Favs Hope they are yours as well!

Spring flowers

Spring flowers

Or should I call them “End of winter” flowers? Or what about “Pre-Spring” flowers?

We have written blogs on Snowdrops over the last couple of weeks but now other flowers are starting to pop up.

Snowdrops in Hartford Road:

These Snowdrops are growing in a garden that I often used to pass when going to work at the plastics factory.

Another photo of the same garden only a week later:

Snowdrops alongside river:

Snowdrops growing alongside the River Great Ouse at its pass through Huntingdon & Godmanchester. They were just beginning to open when I took this picture – but look what they look like 7 days later!

These Snowdrops are now half drowned! They live beside the river & most years they get covered by the rise of the river yet it seems to do them no harm! In fact last year the river covered them several times, once for the best part of 2 weeks! When the waters subsided again they were all covered in mud! It looked most awful but I suppose the mud also brings with it nutrients that keep them going year after year. We read & hear about how beneficial flood waters are for the livelihood of peoples whose lives depend on the mud from flooding rivers.

Here they are underwater! Taken on March 1st 2010:

Snowdrops upclose near river:

This clump of Snowdrops I found near the river but not in the same place as the others above. These are no more than 5 minutes walk from my place but I’d never seen them before. It’s a section further up from where I was accustomed to walk to work. The flooded Snowdrops are between the towns of Huntingdon & Godmanchester. They are on the G’chester side of the river about 20 minutes walk from my place. The photo was taken from the footbridge which I used to cross 2x a day 5 days a week for 5 years going & coming from the plastics factory where I used to work till being made redundant a year ago.

I don’t have any Snowdrops on my balcony but I do have quite a few Species Crocuses & they have been flowering for several weeks now.

As I think that’s enough of Snowdrops for this year I now want to show you the Species Crocuses now flowering on my balcony.

Crocuses are such brilliant flowers for the beginning of spring! They bring us a foretaste as it were of the summer colours. I used to grow the big Dutch hybrids but when I first grew the species ones I was won over the first time! These little bulbs have been growing for about 3 years in pots on the balcony, perhaps longer if not the same corms I originality put in. Most years they are grown under Pansies or last year, for the first time, Violas.

Species Crocuses now flowering:

This year they are growing in the same pots as Fuchsia cuttings! When the Pansies finished I put some Snapdragons seedlings in each of the pots.

But later in the summer I needed space for my Fuchsia cutting & I “plonked” them in these pots – hence the labels you can see! I hope they have survived the winter.

I had them in the greenhouse all winter & I only put them out on sunny days but put them back in when frost is forecast.

Here is a photo of Crocuses on the balcony railings:

I love these white ones. I took the photo just today, 7th March:

This one is also from today but the colours are so lovely! I could upload all 9 pics of the 9 pots on the railings but that might be “overkill”! You can find more Crocus flowers in my pictures.

I hope you enjoy looking at these lovely little flowers as much as I do! At least on the balcony railings they are high up & I don’t have to get down to ground level!