You may want to go with plastic pots to keep the weight down and go as large as possible. I tried a few commercial bagged mixes before settling on Foxfarm Ocean Forest mix. Your biggest issue will be watering. I assume you don't have a spigot outdoors but you can attach a hose thread adapter to a kitchen sink and run a hose out to the balcony. The hotter it gets the more watering you will need to do and lugging a big flower pot back and forth is no fun as I learned last season. I am right on the coast so I was lulled into a false sense of security with the spring and summer fogs last year but got a rude shock in late summer and fall and had a hard time keeping up with watering. I grow all ornamental plants. Started out with a focus on hummingbird plants and have shifted to succulents to help keep down my water use. It may be too late already for peas in your climate but it may be worth a try anyway since the nights are probably still cool. I love my little balcony garden but I can't wait to have a yard again. Good luck!

Hi thanks so much for the replies. How would one put containers in the ground? Wouldn't this stop virtually all drainage? (small holes up against the clay soil won't allow much to exit...) How long term are we talking? I don't quite understand how a pot in the ground is different than a hole dug out into the ground with the soil completely replaced. Will the minerals from the clay leach in from the sides or what? Or will the roots start growing into the clay and rot or starve for nutrients? In which case its better to have them forced to stay in the good soil? Sorry for so many questions. This is in my parent's backyard (I live at home) so I am not free to do whatever I want. I have a raised bed that is being built into the landscaping, and it actually is kind of going into a 3-4 foot hill. The blueberry plants were going in the hill behind the raised vegetable beds. Pots/a raised bed would look funny on a hill and my mom is very picky. Each plant+soil was about 25$ so I don't want to waste 125$ and have them die. Plus I want good berries so I want to do it right... Any ideas? Should I dig them out and make the holes wider and fill them in with more soil? I intend to fertilize with acidifying azalea mix to undo the leaching. Also I'm about 1 mile from the ocean so not extremely close and the plants are by a wall facing west.

Howdy Thierry, I agree that [very sadly for us "murcans"] ;0) , most murcan violets don't have any scent at all. And I certainly agree that those Odoratas and Parmas really are top of the list for fragrance, but... If you ever have a lot of Priceana in bloom on a warm day, try smelling a bundle of freshly picked flowers. It's not super strong and it is very different from odorata or Parma, but it's still a pleasant fragrance. Reminds me of honeysuckle or jasmine. Viola canadensis also is always scented for me. And Viola blanda has a little bit too. And just once, when my nose was really starved, I even found some fragrance in a large pile of Viola striata flowers that I was collecting pollen from. I was very surprised at that one -- I'd smelled it many times before and always been disappointed. I sure hope your nose can smell some of these too -- don't give up too easily on the murcans. Thanks for the laughs. Take care, Tom P.S. In case anyone is still wondering what these murcan violets are... Hint: say it 5 times fast -- "a murcan violet, a murcan violet, a murcan violet, a murcan violet, a murcan violet"

Uhoh this is a little disheartening. I just bought a whole crop of bareroot peonies online from a reputable source - Brecks. I've been pretty ambitious with the things I've planted and had success so far. My area is supposed to be Zone 10a in Newport Beach but we're almost on the Back Bay and it doesn't get as much sun or as hot as it does even 2 miles further inland. Water keeps the nights cooler in the winter too. Crossing my fingers that the anemones, peonies, and everything else I bought do ok.