Any other balcony winter sowers?

17 years ago

Hi all! I recently had to give up my garden, which was mostly wintersown, when I moved to the city this fall. So, I'm starting over from scratch on a smaller scale. Luckily, I have a balcony with southwestern light, and there are a half dozen milk crates full of ws containers out there. Container gardening is fairly new for me, and I'm also attempting a very small watergarden. I was wondering if there were any other balcony/city wsers here and if so, I'd love to see picks of what you do with your plants. All the best.

mandyb

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Comments (11)

kqcrna
17 years ago
mandy: pvick grows incredible things on her balcony. It is spectacular. I hope she comes along.

Karen
penny1947
17 years ago
Hey Mandy, can you see me waiving at you from Nizagara County! Welcome back!

Like Karen said Pvick does container gardening on her balcony and wintersows everything she grows and then some I am sure. I bet she will jump right on this thread as soon as she spots the subject line.

BTW, I still have your wintersown hostas and last year they were huge and bloomed beautifully.

Penny
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PVick
17 years ago
LOL, Penny! You sure got me pegged!

Hi, Mandy! Nice to have another balcony gardener around; there are lots of folks here who container garden, in addition to ground-gardening, so you won't be lacking for picture and ideas.

I've never gardened in the ground; pots have always been it for me. Before my first WS year (6 years ago!), I'd really not gardened that much - a couple of tomato plants started from seed on a sunny windowsill, maybe a marigold or two.

Another GWer (over on the Balcony Gardening forum) inspired me with what she grew, and then I found WS and I do believe I lost my senses! Every picture of every plant made me want to have it! And we won't even mention the seed addiction.

I've WSed almost everything grown on my terrace. The weigelas, fig tree and the lilac are some exceptions. It's been said that anything can be grown in a pot if the pot is big enough - I'm trying my best to prove that right!

This year I've really scaled down - only 21 containers so far. I've also contemplated a water garden, but I have pigeon nuisances up here, and I don't want to encourage them any more than absolutely necessary.

If you'd like to take a look at what I've WSed over the years, you can see my pics here: Garden Pics

Hope you enjoy! And happy WSing/container gardening!

PV
Renter
17 years ago
Hi, I have been growing in containers for about 4 years. I moved and dug as much as I could, the property was going to be redone - right now on my deck I have 5 or 6 hellebores finishing flowering, pulsatilla, about 25 fuchsias, containers of David Austin roses, starts from the large plants I had that I sold. 3 hydrangeas, 3 clematis, and more - yes I have to manuever my way to the door. I do have a lot of containers downstairs. I am in a small one bedroom addition to the front house so I can put my containers downstairs and bring up what is in bloom or something I want to check on. There are 5 peonies, and pots and pots of lilies, veronicas, verbascum, 2 azaleas
spring bulbs, japanese anemones, I started a lot from seed and for the first time WSd seeds - I have more lupine, foxglove, 3 kinds of delphinium, 3 or 4 diferent columbine, more verbascum, foxglove and 4 kinds of tomatoes.
When people come over the response is WOW or what are going to do will all of them - I don't show them the new seeds. But as much as I would like to have a plot of ground to plant in when I come home and the steps have pots of bloomintg celandine poppy, pulsatilla, and more it looks so pretty. I need to divide right now because they are full, I have several things in each container that I can get for .75 at the most for 3 - 5 gallon containers from a nursery that I wash out and reuse. Oh, there are 3 oleanders on the deck, but since I had the plants before I moved here some have a hard time because a lot of them aren't plants for full sun, but last year with highs here of 105 they made it. This January they were all completely frozen solid but they are growing stronger than ever. I like to move them around - and things are the same only for a week or so before I find something to bring up from downstairs. Oh, there are daylilies and iris.
I don't know if that answered your question I don't have a camera to post pictures, but I know you can do a lot with containers.
mandyb
Original Author
17 years ago
Hi everybody and hi Penny! I'm so glad to be back. I thought I was going to have to give all of this up! I just hope I don't get evicted for collapsing my balcony with all these wintersown babies! There are, umm, maybe even a few more containers out there than before...:)
mandyb
cinda66
17 years ago
pvick

Did you take all the photos yourself?
I'm a serious hobby/competition photographer (I was artist of the month in March and was displayed in a local gallery). A few of those would do really well in competition. You have a great eye.
PVick
17 years ago
Haha, mandyb! There's still plenty of time to add even more containers ....

cinda - I do take all the pics myself. Some many years back, I did sell a photo for a calendar, but I'm really not too serious a photog. Thanks for the compliment!

And congrats on the artist of the month honor! (Is there somewhere to see your pics?)

PV
cinda66
17 years ago
pvick
Sorry I didn't catch this post sooner.
I have a few posted at Better Photo.... the url is below

Here is a link that might be useful: Gallery
penny1947
17 years ago
PV,
I have been meaning to ask, did you wintersow your abutilon? It is really beautiful! I have two...one from a cutting and one that I bought as a starter plant. The starter is about 2 ft. tall now and itching to go back outside (blooming like crazy). The rotted cutting bloomed all summer and in the fall when I brought it in, it grew over 10ft. over the winter and had to be cut back twice. It is going out today too! I would love to do one from seed but so far I haven't gotten any from my plants. Hopefully this year I will.

Penny
PVick
17 years ago
cinda - your photos are beautiful! Wow! You are definitely an artist. Thanks for sharing them.

Penny - I started the abutilon inside last year; after a few weeks of trying to keep the cat away from the pot, I stuck it in a plastic bag and put it outside - think in early April. The one seed that germinated did so outside. It started blooming when it was about 8" tall and hasn't stopped since. It's about 18" tall now, I think, maybe a little more. I want to repot it before I put it outside - right now it's in a 1-gallon nursery pot. It's an amazing plant, for all it's fragile looks. Gotta say I'm thoroughly pleased with it.

10 ft. over the winter? Geez! Maybe I'll need a bigger pot than I had planned!

PV
lblack61
17 years ago
Geez-Louise, PV!
I had to stop looking at the 2006 pictures because I was going to start hyper-ventilating! They gave me chills!
You have a talent in more ways than one. I agree with Cinda in saying you really have an eye! Those plants are absolutely gorgeous and the way you captured them...
I haven't had a rush like that since I stood in front of a Rob Rauschenberg at MOMA!
You make me want to get outside and dig some more (and make container plans for our deck!)

Linda

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