Balcony Gardening Wrap Up 2012

Another year passed by and it’s time to review the progress of my balcony garden adventure. I love gardening so much! 

For the time being, I have to settle with balcony gardening, but I can’t wait to have a huge garden.

Where do I start, let’s start with the easy one, my fern. 

I bought this fern as a little plant from my neighbour (this lady has a massive backyard with lots sorts of plants). I never owned a fern before, so initially I had problem with positioning this plant. 

I put it on a sunny part initially on the photo above - far left corner), but it looked like it was about to die after a few weeks. So, I moved it to a dark corner and the leaves started to yellow! 

Finally, I moved it to a non sunny spot, right next to my garden/balcony bench and it thrived! The last time I checked 

little roots had started coming out from the top soil, so, I think I have to do something about it.

This photo is taken in late  2011, very small fern. 

This photo is the fern now, very bushy. Love it!

If you remember my little herbs garden, well, it’s no longer little. J

The bay leaves tree and the curry leaves tree are big and tall now. 

 Old Curry Leaves Tree and Bay Leaves Tree in 2011.

 Curry leaves tree now.

Bay leaves tree now.

 I have unlimited supply of fresh bay leaves.

I replanted the basil. The one from last year stopped growing so I dug them out and replace it with new batch of basil seedlings. They grow really fast. I have also added to my collection of herbs, a bunch of parsley and rosemary. I hope they will stay healthy and grow into gigantic herbs.

The herb pot before last winter, the basil was still alive.

New herb pot 1 - Thyme

 

 New herb pot 1 - Rosemary and Spring Onion

This is my second herb pot that I use just for basil seedlings. Photo taken 2nd Feb. 

This photo is taken 24th Feb, same basil seedlings as above, you can see how fast they grow.

I bought this Geranium plant from Bunnings on the sale rack, it almost died back then. I simply moved it to a bigger pot, threw seaweed solution at it and it’s back to its former glory. This plant is a regular flowering plant in here. I always cut the flower and use them to decorate the unit. Is it true that when you cut the flowers it encourage new growth on 

Geranium? My Geranium definitely looks bushy and healthy.

A little skinny right after I got it from Bunnings.

In a big rectangular pot and a lot taller now.

 Gorgeous Geranium for home decoration. Put them in tall skinny vase and it's simple elegance.

Another new addition to my plant collection is Hydrangea. We bought 2 pots of hydrangea before the wedding, because we wanted to use the flower. After the wedding I moved them into 1 big square pot and the leaves have been growing ever since. I didn’t have to do anything... magic plant. Is it really that easy? Or do I have to do something to make it 

flower?

My favourite! Roses! Sad news, one of my roses, the oldest one, died last winter. L

I didn’t notice it until spring when it flowers and the flowers turned from yellow to red! I was in total shocked when that happened. So the Fresia died and the root stock, Dr Huey is back in charge. Turned out my yellow rose plant is grafted. L

The other roses are doing swell. Country Woman, the red rose is taller than me now. The white rose, Pope John Paul II has been blooming nonstop, same as the purple Ebb Tide.

This is yet another addition to my small space garden, Money plant or Jade plant. This is probably the easiest plant that I’ve ever planted. Put them indoor, outdoor, wherever, they will survive. I cut a few branches off the main plant and transplanted them into a smaller pot to be placed indoor. You can see that new leaves started coming out from the cut branches.

Another favourite, Succulents! Remember my blog entry slow growing succulents? Well, they’re not slow! The Jelly Beans and Sedum Burito (Donkey’s Tail) grew like weed. I had to move them to a separate basket because they slowed down the growth of the others.

The old succulent basket where I combined everything into one.

The new succulent basket. Minus the jelly beans.

 

New little basket to be placed indoor or for one awesome gift.

Utilising broken plate for succulent is a great idea.

Separated Jelly Beans, they grow like weeds!

Jelly Beans cutting for sale.

I also bought this plant, Hypoestes, from sale rack in Kmart garden centre a few years ago. Again, you can’t go wrong with Seasol, look at this plant now!

 

 

I’m trying to transplant the white spotted leaves at the moment, because there is only 1 in the main plant (I was so lucky...) and I haven’t been able to transplant it successfully until now. I have 3 little pots of the white leaves now, fingers crossed they will survive.

Tomato plant sadly died in ... I didn’t get a chance to enjoy them, because the birds ate the fruits! Same thing happened to my strawberries plant. Those annoying Mynas!

 

Last addition was Lavender, it’s not looking very healthy at the moment. I went overseas for a few weeks last December and this plant took the biggest hit. I have trimmed the dead flowers and hopefully with lots of TLC it will survive.

Lots of exciting things in 2012 and stay tuned for yet another balcony gardening journey in 2013. I’ll be adding interesting new plants to my collection. 

A little sneak peek. What is this mystery plant? You just have to stay tuned :)