Hi there! Wecome to the world of balcony gardening!!!! Glad you could join us. first of all... the other forum on GW that you will want to pay close attention to is the container gardening forum. Its basically the same as here. we all garden in containers. So, to answer your questions with my experinces.... I have been gardening in some form all of my life, and balconly / container gardening for the better part of 5 seasons now. As anyone here can tell you, have had TREMENDOUS success at growing super plants in containers. Firstly, Dont be fooled by what you can fit in window boxes. You c an fit more than you'd think , provided you are diligent about fertilizing and watering. Here is what I did. Firstly for flowers... My absolute favorite plant for window boxes that produce flowers all season long until frost are: Vinca (madagascar periwinkle) and Catmint. Both of those procduce rather prolific displays of flowers the entire growing season and both get pretty big. Both are bush plants, one being more upright, the other being upright to trailing over the edge. The latter being the catimint. Catimint is an HERB, and can be used in making teas that are good for calming and upset tummy as well as sleeping. I would also look into trying the following plants Ornamentals: Vinca Vine: not to be confused with Vinca (madagascar periwinkle) vinca vine is a trailing plant with verigated green and white leaves. This plant can grow (hanging over the edge) upwards of 10 feet in a season. Dracena "spikes": These are good center piece plants. THey are spiky, kind of like mini yucca plants, and will grow very vertically. Herbs: Catmint, English or Lemon Thyme, Sage of any kind, Curry, Lemon Balm, rosemary, lemon Verbena. I would also consider here, Alpine strawberries. Alpine strawberries are a compact plant, and do not send out "runners" as do the usual common strawberries. Also, thier fruit is much smaller than the common strawberry, and it is also much more flavorful. It is very sweet, and also a good bit bitter, but most importantly, the flavor is VERY intense. Smaller fruit, but MUCH m ore intense flavor,... and the plants are very attractive and compact upright type plants. They also bloom quite a bit, so there are always cute, snow white flowers to look at! The thing with all of the above mentoned plants, is that they can all be used for culinary purposes, from making tea's to cooking, or drying, groudning and storing them for future use. There is nothing like cooking a salmon filet on a beautiful summer evening and seasoning it with your own home grown herbs!!!! Other things to consider would be Oxalis (shamrocks) lavender, Salvia, Merigolds, even dwarf, ornamental varities of chilipeppers. Pretty much all of the plants I have mentioned to you would do best with an ESE to a western exposure. Even north may provide enough light during the summer months for you. What is your exposure btw? I am sure there are FAR more plants than I have mentioned to you h ere that you can use. Just keep reading here, and im sure between all of us, and the vast knowedge that everyone h ere collectively posesses, that you will have more than enough to choose from. The people here are not only extremely knowledgeable about thier gardening hobbies, but they are also extraordinarily friendly too! Please let us know what you do, and post pics of you p ossibly can! we would love to see the "fruits" of your labors!!!!! Ken

Here's a close-up of the vine: The plant with it is a geranium I'm pretty sure. There's a violet in there too that will grow up and cover the roots a bit. But the sun doesn't really reach down there anyway. And yes, I plan to get/make a trellis before the vines get too long. :D Will it be okay if it only gets direct sun in the morning? (Not sure for how long, haven't had the chance to time it yet..) It's pretty bright there for most of the rest of the day too, but it's indirect.

I can't speak to pumpkins, but cucumbers will grow pretty much themselves. As they get long enough simply work them in and out of the holes in the trellis. They develop these little gripper things that wind around stuff to hold them in place. From time to time I have had to re-route some (they are quite insidious) back from other areas. They are very tolerant of this. I would follow the packet guidelines for the cucumbers for trellising. I think I have mine about every 6" along the bottom of the trellis.

Thanks so much, everyone. Krista, the purplish rose is Wild Blue Yonder, which has beautiful, very large and fragrant flowers and a gangly tall undercarriage, at least for me. Oneto Home Saffron is a rose that I think Vintage got from the SJHRG. I believe Masha saw it there and took pictures. This is my first bloom and it's not very large, perhaps 3 inches, and I don't think the blooms are ever huge. The color however is so unusual, somewhat like a Lady Hillingdon bud and yet somehow richer. Christina, I believe OHS is the study name for this rose and no one knows its real name. Hard to believe this rose isn't better known and grown more. Thank you for the complements about my garden. It's coming along but of course it's still a work in progress. I think in another two years I'll be much closer to what I hope to achieve. Ingrid