Plantings

A week after my story about soil, gardening, and growth seems as good a time as any to talk about what we've planted this year. After last year's fail er, not quite so successful foray into container gardening on a balcony with low light much of the time and scorching sun for a few hours a day, I wasn't sure that I wanted to plant anything this year! Between Gwen and I being gone for 3.5 weeks this summer, and no desire to spend money on plants only to spend hours and hours on them to fail, I wasn't getting the excited feeling I normally did about planting.

That said, it had the appeal of being a fun activity for Gwen and I to spend an afternoon on with school out of session, and it promised beautiful colors on our balcony - if only for a week or two - so I decided to give it another go with a few changes. First, we went to the local nursery instead of the nursery section of Home Depot, and secondly, there I decided to let go of all the things I wanted to plant and instead ask the pros for ideas. Some new soil (three), and Gwen and I were ready to give it a shot.

We ended up with some really beautiful plants... none of which I would have went for myself, but which I think look absolutely lovely on our porch!

We did the three pots from last year in our sun/shade mixed section of porch... then bought a new pot to plant two lovely full shade varietals.

I'm pretty darn please with how everything looked! And now, a couple of weeks later, things are still looking pretty good! Two of my begonias are struggling a little, while the other two are thriving. The basil is doing okay, and the coleus (shade and sun versions) looks great. The little freesia makes me very happy too.

I really am happy we decided to give this another go!