r/Balconygardening

I wanted to repot this snake plant which is in my balcony and saw this little fellow looking all cozy amongst the leaves! A little research led me to believe it’s an Indian Tree Frog. Pls correct me if I’m wrong

I’ve been doing it for a year and the trunk still looks like a toothpick lol

Last year was the first year my partner and I attempted some balcony gardening. It went great until we went on holidays for a few weeks and came back to a completely out of control infestation of spider mites, which killed almost everything we had. We had someone come in and water for us, but they hadn't noticed the spider mites until we came home and then it was too late. We obviously threw all the dead ones out, disposed of the soil and washed all of the pots. The exception was the big planter box shown in the picture because of the sheer volume of soil in it, it felt like a waste to throw all that out, to to mention a lot of work.

Jump forward to this year, we did a test plant of a raspberry cane in the same planter box, again went away for a couple of weeks and came back to it covered in mites (presumably spider mites again, but I'm not sure). I unfortunately don't have a picture of it when it was covered in them, but I tried to take a good picture of some of the dead ones after they had been sprayed a couple of days ago with the spray in the image (apologies for the German on the bottle).

The raspberry cane I'm pretty sure is beyond saving, but I want your guys advice on what we should do next. Do we really need to dispose of all of this soil and thoroughly clean the inside of the planter, or is there a way we can somehow treat the soil to stop them swarming all over the tomato plants we will soon put in there?

Thank you all very much!

Unfortunately, I didn’t succeed with my seedlings, so I decided to start my vegetable balcony garden with nursery plants instead. Hoping I can keep them healthy this time and eventually harvest from them someday 🥰

This is my first harvest ever. I made a little garden on my city balcony. Gonna make pasta and bread with this all today. Feeling proud!

I come from a long line of gardeners, but never tried it myself. This year I decided to try and it came so naturally. Everything’s just thriving and i absolutely love sitting outside now.

Oregano
Basil
Lavender
Tomato’s
Cucumber
Rosemary
Pepper
Strawberry
Foxglove
Cypress
Mint

What I did: immediately repot them into a nice home with terracotta planters. Potting soil and a nice little water afterwards. I’ve learned to not listen to what the net says, but the plants. I rotate between watering them on top and filling the tray at the bottom. Ladybugs love my strawberry and it’s been nice watching their little world.

I keep everything in its own pot and made zones bc I know what needs the most sun. Stakes for my cucumbers, which I’m going to let grow on the terrace.

I put everything in a planter pretty much all mixed in—salad leaves like rocket and mustard, pak choi, some spring onion (that I think will pull through) and I’ve mint and parsley in a pot on the side. Pretty much all the herbs we eat plus semi-regular salad just from throwing a few seeds out!

I made this arrangement with coleus, celosia, and a wax begonia. If anyone has any tips for keeping this arrangement outdoors I’m a noob to outdoor gardening lol. But I absolutely love all the colors in this pot 🥺

Saw multiple videos and read articles before doing this and passing on the summary :-)

Soil mix

Sand : Compost : Perlite : Cocopeat (used whatever the pot from the nursery had) = 1: 1/2 :1/2 : 1/4

Added one stick of charcoal as well. Added a small spoon of NPK for adenium.

New pot for adenium was around 1.5 inch larger in circumference and around 3 inch deeper. Apparently the depth is less important.

Pushed the caudex (thick part of the stem) up by ~2 inches while repotting. Can notice the faint marking on the stem if looked at closely.

Kept the succulent tray in a corner where I don't need to water other plants frequently.

This plant is a recent addition and have been researching about its pruning for a bit. Got conflicting ideas about the ideal time to prune online.

Decided to go ahead with the pruning anyhow today (mid-May as opposed to the majority views being Feb/March) as the leaves were quite small and the plant needed a good chance at flowering around August.

There's around a fortnight for new shoots to kick in before it starts raining and then around two months for the growth to settle in.

Pl share your experience with growing harsingar in pots for balconies.

Showing off my little balcony (of two balconies). Both have a pitched roof, this one here is more pitched than the other. During winter, I get a lot of sun on this balcony (if the weather is good, which rarely happens where I live) and basically full shade during the summer months, but full sun at the rail the whole day. It took me a while to figure out which plants I can grow here. Christmas roses, hortensia, fuchsia, ferns, hosta, ivy and clematis are doing well in full shade (the clematis grows along the climbing aid and gets some sun). Funnily enough also the parsley and chive love the shade. At the rail the balcony gets full sun, so I grow basil, Russian-wine, mint, melissa, strawberries, dill, wild roses and sage there.

Last year I had a lot of spider mites which killed some hortensias as well as both of my clematis and every single fuchsia. This year I have been spraying pesticides since early spring and it seems to help.

I sew the cushions on the chair with songket I bought on a trip to Malaysia. I made the laterns on a trip to Vietnam. I like crafting my souvenirs. I learn a new skill and I have something to take home. My balcony is my little souvenir exhibition from all over the world.

I love the pitched roof because it gives cabin-feeling and it opens a whole lot of different possibilities compared to a normal balcony.

And oh, the elder is from the wood nearby. I propagated it from branches I cut off the elders growing there. Wild strawberries grow at its foot. It has a lot of spider mites and I keep spraying it either with just water or a mix of water, soap and rape oil (or a real pesticide but I cannot use that as frequently as the others). Any advice to fight spider mites are welcome!

Hi everyone,
My boyfriend and I‘s balcony is quite small (3,35m long and 0,9m wide, height is 3,4m though!).

We would like to have at least 2 chairs and a small table. And as many plants as possible.
The sun shines directly on the balcony, but it doesn’t get to the part directly behind the wall or anything thats lower. So we would need to put the plants on a raised surface for them to get enough light…
That would make things more complicated as we would probably need more shelves for the long side but don’t have enough room…

Do you have some tips ideas?

Ps.: the net will have to stay, so the cats can be on the balcony. The beer crates will be gone soon!