Hello Julianna! I sure hope this form gets busy again with post. This is my second year at gardening on the balcony and I sure hope I can get some feedback, since my first year was a horrible learning experience. I will be taking a go at veggies again and some flowers. Crossing my fingers that this year will be more successful.

I plan to do even more with hanging plants on my covered front porch. If I finagle a bit more, I think I can squeeze a few more in, for an even more solid "wall of foliage."

Really need to start collecting clay pots and try to eventually get away from the plastic ones. Got to start somewhere, I only need about 100... everything would look so much nicer with "good" pots.

Oh yay! I went on vacation and came back to posts :)

So yes, finding that right combination of water, soil, and sun really makes the difference. My first year balcony gardening again was a dismal failure. I discovered I had the soil of death. It killed everything. I switched it out and suddenly things were so much easier.

I like the idea of your wall of foliage, purpleinopp. The nicer pots do make things so much better. I had to keep more plastic and lighter materials though to lessen the weight on my balcony. I have no idea how much it can hold, and the management had no idea either. I went with the standard 60lbs/sqft, but who really knows? So I thought it best to play on the safe side. 3 floors is more than I'd care to fall :)

Trying to decide if balsam and jewelweed really pair with hedychiums. I have seeds for both which means I should try it. Yet, there is the allure of catalogs. I also can't figure out where to put my desired alpine strawberry. Scented geraniums have attacked my plans too. Gong to CA didn't help-- scented geraniums where everywhere.

I'm looking forward to expanding my plant collection for my covered front porch. Last year I had a pot of coral bells and one with a baby hosta. I'd winter sown both and am doing more pots of them this year. I'm also hoping the ones I planted out last year survive through the winter. For pretty planters, I have good luck at church rummage sales. I don't often find one, but when I do, it's a good one.

I sometimes manage to find interesting things/pots in antique shops/flea markets, but I've never found anything large enough yet. I keep looking.

Funny! I just started my list of plants for this year. I used to have a community garden plot and was really into the 3 season cycling of plants. Since my balcony is pretty much a potager with a combo of kitchen garden plants and pretty flowers I have to be very selective on what goes out there! Last year I over did it with too many plants (it was my first post-community garden year). This year I will do my usual herbs: chives, basil, rosemary, curly parsley, lavender, savory, thyme, and oregano. I grew a Fish Pepper last year that I must do again. It's a spicy variegated African American heirloom from Maryland that is so pretty! Also from last year, a purple jalapeno-pretty and very tasty. I grew them in my garden and the fruit was much larger than my potted ones from last year. I may try nipping all but a few of the peppers to see if they grow larger. I will try a black krim tomato. It's my favorite but I had poor luck last year (2 many plants and I got whiteflies). I'm going to try nasturtiums and of course will have my citrus plants, aloe, and a 10 year old geranium we rescued when we moved my grand mother to assisted living (got my green thumb from her, sadly she's gone but I still have her plant!)

I think I am almost done plant and seed shopping for this season. Inevitably I will think of something else, but the bulk is finished. Since I am basically all shade it's more difficult... only due to the fact that my favorite and desired plants are all full sun. So that was a difficult transition. On the plus side, I have a balcony which I don't have to water every single day unlike everyone else in the complex, and my plants do very well with the protection from the 100+temps which go on for weeks.

I've grown Fish Pepper before-- I loved it! i've also done black Krim and loved it as well. I really liked "Stump of the World" tomato a lot. When I was living in my house (before we moved here for school) I had seeds for 150 tomatoes and was running like 30 at a time each year to try them out. So much fun!

Herbs are great. My railing sees about 3-4 hours of sunlight, so I have a combination of herbs and strawberries. I'm growing Mara des Bois and love them! Herb-wise I've got German thyme, dwarf sage, orange mint, KY Colonel spearmint, oregano, and a rosemary. I've got a dwarf munstead lavender, a pineapple mint, and a golden thyme on the windowsills in here-- picked them up in CA 2 weeks ago. I will plant a few basil seeds to get a plant this year as well once I put the others out. I also have some clumping onions.

I wanted to do as much fragrant and edible stuff as possible. Most things I have are either one or the other. Some just bloom. I have a few foliage things. I was going for a nice sitting area/jungle/retreat.

The trend at the BBS's lately seems to be decorative cache pots. When/if they go on clearance, they're basically giving the plant away with the purchase of the pot. Got a black ceramic one I like a lot at WM this way the other day. Six bucks for the pot with a pretty red Aglaomena that's quite healthy and robust looking for a clearance plant.

Now I feel really spoiled. I took the plastic pot out to give it a drink/drain and the difference is striking. Never been one to even notice the pots, just busy looking at the plants, but now I'm ruined! LOL! I want more prettier pots too...

Oh i know! And that is such a great way to get some of those pots. I was considering painting my plastic ones to all be the same color for matching, but now I decided just to drape plants and cover them that way. Some sedums work wonderfully for making a curtain you can't see through!

So I discovered a new plant which i had never known about before. I apparently have been skipping over them for years. Found out about them in the annuals forum in a thread about alternatives to impatiens-- achimenes. I ordered 2 kinds, peach blossom and blue sparks. I'm planning on tucking them into my boxes on *my* side of the railing.

I think I'm moving my tuberous begonias to my boxes too, and also putting them on my side. So I'll alternate begonias and achimenes.

I also decided to take some of my baby spider plants and add them to my hanging baskets this year. Also going to try to root some cuttings of my streptocarpella and put them in the baskets. So I should have asparagus fern, spiders, streptocarpella, and possibly I'll divide my little (huge) home depot ruffles fern to add in there as well.

This begonia pairing is inspiring.

Here is a link that might be useful: Begonias

Oooh yes! I go nuts putting Persian shield everywhere! It's one of my backbone plants. Would love to have that beautiful Begonia at bottom right. It looks like shooting stars.

Purple-- I sent you an email fyi just in case your gw goes somewhere you don't really check.

That begonia is Little Brother Montgomery. I see both it and Paul hernandez are at Taylor's Greenhouse. I'm thinking to order them and add in a white streptocarpella. Maybe also get the rose scented geranium from them. I'm really considering this lol.

Supposed to get an ice storm possibly tomorrow. But after that, no freezing in the 10-day forecast. Daffodils are blooming across the street in a field. I'm really hoping spring is on its way!

Lots of thinking about begonias for my balcony. I also tried out some skeepskins on my chairs inside to see if i like it for outdoor dining. Moved an anemone to a pot with another anemone. This freed up a large pot for begonias.