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

jbest123, you could string lamps (say 4) of varying intensities across the space and time them (say 4 hours) to come on in sequence to simulate sunrise to sunset. Who knows? You might add a whole new dimension to "grow lighting". OK! OK! I know that you did not ask for suggestions. You will not hurt my feelings if you ignored this.

Lizza, It sounds like the one tree has been sitting inside for most of the fall/winter? If that is true, you are going to have to be careful putting it outside at this point. Normally they are left outside in the fall until they naturally lose their leaves and go dormant over a period of weeks. This prevents tissue damange. If you go straight from 70 degrees indoor to 30 or 40 degrees outside, you may have a problem. If you decide to do it, if possible wait until the weather will be relatively warm (50s) for a week or so when you put it out so it will have a chance to go dormant. If you don't want to risk it, then you can just leave indoors in a sunny location until spring. For the other one, I'd say you are probably OK leaving it on the balcony, but there are really two concerns: 1. Not cold enough: If the temperatures are not cold enough, or if it gets warm and stays warm, then your trees will try to put out leaves. These will be killed the next time the temperature drops. Each time this happens it weakens the tree, and reduces stored energy and next years crop, even if it doesn't kill the tree. It should be fairly easy to tell if this is happening by looking to see if the buds on your trees are trying to open and send out leaves and/or fruit. For this concern, sun exposure is a bad thing, because it warms them further, so I would try to keep them shaded. But it's not the sunlight that's the problem directly, rather it's the heat injected by the sun. 2. Too cold: If you're in Arlington in a fairly urban area, you probably are zone 7, but possibly with the heat island effect you're closer to 8. So that should be OK for figs. However, the fact that the trees are in a pot could be a problem. You don't want the roots to freeze. In your 20 inch pot, it's got 9 gallons of soil, so I don't think it will freeze solid in your climate. But the outer inch or two might freeze, which will kill some roots. This probably wouldn't kill the tree but could weaken it a bit. If you are expecting a hard freeze (teens or low twenties), you could wrap it up in a blanket, or put a cardboard box over it. This will help a bit. If you put a cardboard box over it, with a lightbulb inside, this should protect it enough during a hard overnight freeze. But with how this winter is going, it may be that none of that is necessary. Good luck Rob

I remember your posts! My suggestions for affordable utility costs would be: orient n/s as e/w windows allow a lot of heat gain of course there are excellent windows with solar heat gain coefficients (shgc) and u-factors of .3 and less. Also porches are an excellent option also. and provide that extra living space in the great outdoors. Tech Shield roof decking or open cell foam on roofline. Yes closed cell provides higher r-value but traps water unlike foam which allows it to move through the foam. Foam insulating the roofline also creates an unvented attic and mechanicals and ductwork perform better. 1"foam sheathing boards to exterior of walls with seams taped and holes sealed before cladding is installed this combimed with air tight drywall approach will make conventional insulation in the walls perform as rated. it is air movement through insulation that lowers the r-value. I run the numbers for these options for a living and foam in walls is a waste..if you can beat the heat/air infiltration ..fg batts will perform well, sheetrock should be taped between wall and ceiling even if moldings will be installed. seal all of these junctions..even in closets. You can always add fancy ceiling moldings later. (if you like that look!) One thing commonly missed is the sealing of the sole plates to the slab..there is a product called Sill Seal installed before sole plate is installed that is very inexpensive and works well..or a double bead of caulk between sole plate & slab. recessed lights ICAT insulation contact air tight,,,cost is minimal (maybe $15. per box of 6) but retrofit is $15 per recessed light for air tight insert..and a pita to install. Duct leakage..mastic seal at takeoffs at plenum (and all seams if hard ducting) and mastic seal at supply box to attic floor. Heat Pump for heating & cooling..don't buy minimum efficiency (13 SEER) opt for higher seer & variable speed my calcs show that 18 seer & above just are not worth the cost..and unless things have changed drasticaly in the past year..not worth the additional cost. Bath fans...always a bigger cut in sheetrock than actual fan housing size..this also should be sealed. efficiency is detail work...cheap materials, but well worth the time/effort/cost. Utility costs won't go down! best of luck and congrats on your newest build!