dude.. how much of a mess can one tree make on your tiny balcony ... lol ...

how the hosta doing???

i guess i would bother with a flowering shrub where space is so precious.. not because of any mess issue.. but just because most flowering shrubs are just dull boring for the vast majority of the year.. when not in flower ...

how many aquare feet is your balcony ... and then subtract the hosta plant stand.. and give us your best guess how much space your dream would have ...

lets do this the other way .. will any of these fit there???? .. dwarf in the garden does not mean it will stay small.. it just mean annually.. it grows slower than non dwarf ....

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=crape+myrtle+purple+velvet&t=ffcm&iax=images&ia=images

ken

and your title says MINI cm's ...

they are not mini per the www .. which again only means a lesser annual growth rate than a dwarf ... but they dont stop at some magical height .. and stay mini ...

peace out... ken

DUDE. Ken. Last year, some of the smallest hostas, which are on the top shelf of my wire shelving units, started to get sunburned and had to be moved to the second shelf. So, there is definitely room for a 3 gallon bucket of mini crape myrtle on each of the 2 shorter wire shelving units. Purple Velvet is supposed to max out at about 4-5' high and wide (Purple Velvet Crape Myrtle). Berry Dazzle is a tad smaller, maxing at about 3' x 3' (Berry Dazzle Crape Myrtle). They certainly don't arrive at the house that size; that is after several years. The plants you get are more like a foot or two high at the time. By the time they would get to their mature size, hopefully I'll have my little house and a yard to plant them in. It's just that none of the little houses I'm interested in have come up on the market yet. I'm ready to rock and roll when the right one (i.e. in good shape and having a flat yard to garden) comes up on the market.

As for the hostas, I carefully cut back virtually all of the dead leaves last fall, to rob vermin of any overwintering places. So the hosta containers look very neat, and I'm waiting for May pips. I also trimmed away all the dead foliage from the window boxes. I noticed that last year's lantana and callibrachoa were extremely susceptible to wilting if I didn't water every single day, so I think I'm gonna go with deep pink geraniums and maybe varied purple petunias this year in the window boxes. The heucheras are already forming teeny baby leaves at their centers. Of course, the gorgeous Night Eyes fuschias died during the winter, but I want to repeat their splendor as soon as the local frost-free date rolls around, which should be around the first of May. I am really looking forward to having an actual yard to plant my beloved plants in. I will see if there is also room for a Rising Sun redbud in my eventual yard; they are so beautiful. Of course, I have been babying my 40 houseplants all winter, to keep my hand in. If you want a baby spider plant, I know where you can get one cheap...

we have discussed the variables .. and i hereby declare.. you have addressed them all.. so live your dream ...

one last one ... top shelf on an elevated balcony ... a small tree might be less wind proof ... insure it wont fall off and bomb somebody below ...

ken

Babka, roots actually don't get so "wraparound" in fabric grow pots as in plastic pots. I doubt if the crape myrtles will spend several years on my balcony. I have confidence I will find my little house within the year or at most, two. Ken, I made a parapet of PVC pipe to stick up several inches above my wire shelving unit's top shelf especially to address the wind issue last year. Behold! Considering the wind here, which can be considerable, I used heavy eyebolts with swivels to hang the fuschia pots, I made the parapet to keep top shelf pots from blowing off, I hung my window boxes so securely they'd weather an atomic bomb.

BTW Ken, I went out onto the balcony today for a little while, as the weather was nice, and checked all my pots, with the question you asked about them in mind. As I said before, nothing doing whatsoever with the hostas (which is good, considering we're still getting cold nights) and the heucheras are all growing teeny baby leaves. The variegated vinca is actually growing some itsy bitsy new leaves at the base; I didn't realize they could be perennial, but that would be very cool.