Planning plants

I injured my back a couple of months ago, making me more or less immobile for several weeks. Unfortunately this happened at the time when I should've started planting seeds for the summer's plants, so I missed the opportunity to grow my own seedlings.

At least we can enjoy pretty flowers indoors, like this spring cactus.

Thus there's nothing new and exciting on the balcony yet, but I plan to remedy that soon! Sellers at the market already have all sorts of pretty things for sale. I just need to decide on a colour scheme for the year. I'm leaning towards mostly large red flowers this summer, with a few small-flowered white ones for contrast. What do you think?

While I decide, I can enjoy and nurture the little bit of green that's already present on the balcony. The perennials have survived another winter and are waking up. Won't be long before they cover that whole corner!

A Peek at the Balcony

Already past midsummer and I haven't posted any photos of the balcony garden? Tsk. I'm getting old and slow.

This is not because I'd be unhappy with it for some reason; quite the opposite. I think this is my favourite flower box arrangement yet! Marigolds, lobelias and pansies cover the edges, while a couple of miniature sunflowers are growing in the middle (I grew them from seeds myself, so they're a bit slower to bloom than the rest).

Yes, pansies! This is the first time ever they've survived more than a couple of weeks on our hot and windy balcony. I think the secret was perfect timing with the planting (early enough for them to properly take root before the hot days) and a bit of luck with the weather.

The table basket is looking pretty nice this year too! The stonecrop or Sedum on the left is one that survived winter, whereas the one on the right is a new acquaintance. The leaves on the new one are decorative enough on their own, but I'm also curious to see what the flowers are like. Not long now!

Sunday Snippets - week 43

I'm trying something new this week by taking part in something called Sunday Snippets:
A collection of photos from your week. No need for words. Let the pictures tell your story.

This week we saw Turku change from a golden autumn city to a winter wonderland.

An awesome savoury pie, with delicious stuff like cold-smoked salmon, pesto, sundried tomatoes, feta etc. Perfect on a cold October day.

The tiniest tomatoes ever! Some of the last food harvested from the balcony.

Turku Cathedral

A chilly-looking visitor on the balcony. (Look at the railing below; an impressive amount of first snow this year!)

Go to {tinniegirl}'s blog if you want to see more Sunday Snippets or join in yourself!

My balcony garden 2012 - a review

No, this isn't the whole harvest. It wasn't that bad.

Summer 2012 here in Finland was not a good year for the balcony garden - cold and rainy weather with little sun meant sad plants. It's no wonder then that the harvest was also pretty sad this year.

It wasn't all tears and gnashing of teeth, though. I found a few cool new plant acquaintances which will definitely return another summer. As I prefer to look on the bright side of things, I thought I'd look at some of the gardening highlights of the year instead of crying over all the wasted seeds I planted.

I went with pinks, reds and whites as the main colours this summer, with a few spots of bright blue providing contrast.

The seating corner looked much as it has previous years, with the vine and hosta doing quite well in the big planter, and with a gorgeous dahlia providing colour on the little table.

The dahlia was an irresistible shade of bright pink, with darker pink edges on the petals, and it kept on flowering long into September. Oh dahlias, you never let me down, no matter what the weather brings.

 

The other decoration on the table was a basket planted with a couple of perennial succulents. Getting these two was one of the best decisions I've made for the balcony, for they are perfect for its normal conditions; hot and sunny. They did very well, filling up the whole basket over the course of the summer. I hope they'll survive the winter!

The main flower box was planted with white and blue lobelias, red petunias and a pink-and-red new acquaintance, which Wikipedia tells me is called "Sweet William" in English. It also did very well, as did the petunias. Unfortunately the lobelias didn't last more than a month; victims of the crappy weather, I suppose.

The notables of the other corner, shown in the photo below, were the red tobacco plant (always a good choice, it seems) and a pretty silver plant whose name I can't remember. There was also a mini rose planted with them, but the rose didn't like the poor weather at all and gave up pretty quickly.

On the right, with yellow flowers and huge leaves, grew a cucumber plant which produced the most awesome cucumbers ever. Seriously, I have NEVER eaten cucumbers as good as these. Ever. Definitely one to plant another year!

So there you have it, the highlights of my balcony gardening summer of 2012! If you've read this far, well done. I guess you really like plants!

What to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon?

It's already September and the rainy, cold days have arrived. Sunny days are few and far between (have been all summer this year, really), so when the sun was shining prettily this weekend, Mr Morrgan and I went on a spur-of-the-moment trip to the nearby botanical gardens.

Alas and alack, the weather decided to play tricks on us and by the time we arrived at the gardens, the sky was full of dark clouds and the rain was only minutes away (hence the somewhat grey photos).

We would not be deterred, however, and made the most of the outer gardens while we could. When the rain started we rushed into the greenhouses and had a pretty good time looking at all manner of cool, pretty and just plain weird plantlife housed within. Afternoon trip saved!