Apartment Garden Blues (Blog): Adapting to a New Balcony
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- Published on Friday, July 05 2013 20:50
- Written by Alexandra Martin
It's official! I'll be moving to a new apartment very soon. This means that I'll have to adapt my garden to a whole new balcony — unfortunately, a very dark balcony. I've done it before, so I'm sure I can do it again.
I used to live in an apartment with a lovely south-facing balcony that had no shade (and it was huge!). I also had a private entrance with my own set of stairs that I could grow plants on to make a stair garden. I grew sunflowers very successfully and had neighbors stop me to compliment me on my wonderful flowers. I could grow anything I wanted, and I did. But then I moved.
I then had to adapt to a more shady balcony garden that had trees and pine needles constantly falling onto the balcony and in my plant containers. I couldn't grow beautiful showy flowers, but I found very interesting plants to grow and had a thriving garden.
Now I need to adapt to even less light, which I'm not looking forward to. It's very difficult, as you may know, when you're looking for a new apartment that has everything you want. Sometimes you have to take an apartment that faces north because that's the best one available in your area at that time. I'll chronicle my new balcony gardening in upcoming posts.
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Alexandra Martin is a professional writer from Southern California who grows vegetables, herbs, lots of aloe vera and one giant Boston fern in her balcony garden. She also grows dracaena, pothos and English ivy indoors. She loves traveling and birdwatching in addition to gardening.
