Spring or summer garden in balcony?

Try to buy perennials...which bloom through out the season. Roses are the best as except during extreme snowy winters they keep giving flowers through out all seasons.

 

You can buy tulips now for instant effect now, dead head the flowers when they have finished flowering and let them die back naturally or lift the bulbs and dry them with the leaves on in a dry spot. this can take upto 8weeks after deheading . You can replant them again in Sep-Oct for next spring.

In the same pot you can sow some salad leaves, petunia, lobelia, begonia, geranium etc you may have to start them off indoors now.
Nurseries will have sowed annuals only in Jan for the summer display.

Presuming you are in germany the day light hours during winter is too short for the plants to make an effort to wake up hence most plants are in a sleeping stage during winer.

You cam try hedging plants like BOX, hebes etc which keep their leaves throught out winter but will need trimming to maintain their shape before winter ses in.

Hope this is of some help

 

Hi Latha:

Are you planning to have your plants in pots? If yes, then one of the suggestions would be for you to start with a fairly big pot, so that you can plant spring, summer, autumn plants all in one and then add some filler plants for green foliage.

It does take a while to plan to continuous display (if that is what you are looking for). Like Srividya and Smita have suggested plant in perennials alongwith the seasonal flowers - keep deadheading all flowers and you will prolong the flowering.

Will come back with more.

Sindhu

 

Latha, I agree with you. Tulips are almost early spring flowers. My other favorites are daffodils, they do flower in early fall/late summer. I also like roses. Some of my other plants that I really like in my yard are clematis, black eyed susans, hostas, sage, gladiolus, canna - as you have noticed, all of them are perinneals. Most of these should multiply and come back as well, if seperate and repot with in a year or two, you will have so many plants. Ofcourse I do keep hibisucs, jasmine kind of tropical flower plants for summer blooming and move them indoors for winters.

 

The other day...they showed it on our local news that some farmer got the tulip bulbs kept them in refrigerator for 2 or 3 days and got them out and planted them...and they all started blooming

its like changing their cycle...and giving them that frost to spring feeling so that they all start blooming as soon as they get a bit warmer weather.. amazing trick isnt it

 

Hi Latha:

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Pansies and violas combined with ivy or dichondra (have attached a picture below) would be a good option. Ivy,dichondra, helchrysum are more for foliage and act as fillers. But they make a pretty picture together with flowers. However, dichondra is an annual, pansies and violas are biennials. But if you keep at deadheading them and have them pest free, they will flower into the winter as well.

Also, trailing lobelias, sweet peas, begonias look amazing. And then there are fuchsias, these are perennials and I think they come in trailing varieties. Certain geraniums or pelargoniums are fragrant as well. They are very colourful.

The good thing with annuals is that you get a different colourful picture every year with your choice of flower, however, perennials are a blessing when you don't have much time to spend gardening.

If you use lettuce, you could sow their seeds and they look beautiful as they grow especially variegated (coloured) type. Pudina and peppermint can be grown in a pot as also basil and chives. Pudina, peppermint and chives are perennials again, so they will come back year after year. I haven't been very successful with basil, so I don't have much to tell about it.

For fragrance, you could grow lavender (perennial) or try nicotiana (tobacco plant) flowers - they have bright colours and seem to change colours with season or with the time of the day (can't remember which one).

Hmm... did have a problem stopping:rotfl.
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Sindhu

 

Latha

If the pansies are biannuals you can leave them outside and they will flower again next year.