A friend writes that she has prepared her balcony for
summer, buying geraniums, tiny roses and lobelia, which she has planted in pots
and boxes. Her terrace is a sea of color, she says, and indeed, her photos of
neatly arrayed pots and boxes show a palette of pink, blue and white.
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| California poppies |
I reply that mine is a sea of green. There is the clematis
climbing nicely up the wall, but it will be awhile until it blooms. The
California poppies that lived through the winter have put out lovely lacy
leaves, and I think I see a bud forming. One rose survived from last year, as
did the balloon flowers and the ivy in its box; all sport healthy leaves. Green
for some time will be the small plumbago, which doesn’t blossom until July.
Meanwhile, the large plumbago and the salvia patens have overwintered nicely in
the house, and I bring them out to start their new season. Contributing a bit
of color are the tuberous begonias, also overwintered in the house and
beginning to bloom, the faithful small campanulas in their froth of white and
purple and the dependable forget-me-nots.
I can’t furnish my balcony entirely with plants purchased
anew every year. Not only because I like a space festooned with as many plants
as possible and the cost would tax my budget. Much more is the fact that I like
the gradual development, as in nature and also in actual gardening. I don’t
want a garden at my age, but I do want to start some seeds, wrap plants in the
winter to protect against the cold, watch the tulips, grape hyacinths and
callas, already several years old, coming up in their large pots, nurse a plant
or two that is having a bad spell. The helleborus, a present from a friend,
gave me a few anxious days, but is now sporting a couple of new leaves, whew. I
have hope for the red oxalis, which lost its leaves in the house this winter and
appears to have withdrawn into the pot, but this is its usual behavior.
Bringing sensitive plants into the house in the fall means decorative
windowsills, especially as the two jasmines send out meter-long stems carrying
delicate leaves. Installed now on the railing, in a month or so they will be
covered with tiny white flowers, something to anticipate.
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| new morning glories |
Some plants are special. Two big pots on the floor sport a
huge fern and a mystery plant that bears yellow blossoms and has the shape of a
euphorbia plant, but reddish leaves. Both of these I dug up along the walk
leading to the house and they have grown rapidly, liking the shade. A few
smaller examples are potted on the windowsill. Next to these are the beginning
morning glories, starting growth nicely in those little discs one can pop right
into the larger pot on the floor. It is rather shady at floor level in this corner, and starting the
flowers in a sunnier spot means that the tendrils will be reaching up above the
shade by the time they are planted out. I also like to watch them put out those
wing-like seed leaves and beginning tendrils.
Also special this year are mixed wildflower seeds given to
me by a friend, and growing exuberantly in a box and a pot. Will they notice
that they are not in the ground? How much do I have to thin them? Just what
flowers will they produce? Experimental also this spring are some tall
campanulas, but I am not sure whether the thin stems popping out of the soil
are not weeds.
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| mystery wildflowers |
For me, the balcony is the best of both worlds. It is a tiny
garden with mostly raised pots and boxes on the windowsill, the wooden shelves
below the sill and the railing. It is an extra room in the summer, for reading,
eating and working. It is a new experience every day, as I look for the
nasturtiums to pop up, scan the poppies and the balloon flowers for buds and
wind the clematis around its wire trellis. It has its hopeful beginning in
March, when the tulips appear and I can take away the wrappings around the pots,
its lush growth in summer and the autumn work of putting the plants to bed for
the winter. Its plants are faithful companions and fun experiments. Its bounty
comes into the house in the form of herbs, mint, tomatoes and cut flowers. It
enables swapping seedlings and experiences. A friend best described it when she
called it my “little bit of paradise”.
