Changes afoot – on the balcony! (Part two)

Pansies are so pretty and will give you so much colour on these rather dark, dreary days.
You are in Cornwall, we are in Devon so let's hope the winter ahead is gentler than the last one!

The plants will certainly thank you for the new compost, I'm sure.And the Pansies will be full of colour in the spring.
It's great that , even on a balcony, you can provide so much colour for yourselves and neighbours.
great job!!

How impressive too that you interrupted your planting to take all those photos! I would have got compost all over the camera. What you achieve on your balcony would be an inspiration to would-be gardeners with only small spaces. Looking forward to the Spring pictures.

Wow ... you've been busy ...
another for GoYpedia :o)

That is a very busy balcony you've got there Balcony. :o)

They will surely brighten up the dullest winter day and spring to when the Daffodils come through , a good job done there Balcony :o)

Your pansies and bulbs should make a colourful combination in the spring. Something to look forward to :)

@ Wildrose: "You are in Cornwall,"

I'm afraid you've got the wrong St Ives! The town I talked about is in Cambridgeshire not Cornwall! (I didn't say this in this blog because I mentioned it in the previous blog so there wouldn't be misunderstanding like this!) Please see my blog:

http://www.growsonyou.com/balcony/blog/27564-changes-afoot-on-the-balcony-part-one

You are right about Pansies bringing colour to the dark winter days - that is precisely the reason I grow them every year! :-))

@ Paul: Yes the Pansies will be full of colour in the spring but will also give some blooms over the winter, particularly in the mild spells. :-))

In 14 years I'm till the only one who has a balcony full of plants! We live on the ground floor of a 5/6 storey block of flats with 15 flats. I did the same in Spain as all the flats we lived in had balconies but no garden. That's where I learnt to fill them to capacity & have plants on the walls & climbing up strings to the ceiling as well as hanging on the railings! The aluminium rings for pots I bought in Spain in the early 80s & have used them practically non-stop since! I brought them back with me on one visit back to Spain 14 years ago.

@ Stera: I don't know how I managed to keep my phone's camera lens clean either - quite a feat as it has no protective plastic window like on my old phone! In fact sometimes I have to delete photos because of blurriness caused by my fingers inadvertently touching the lens!

I did things things with writing a blog in mind all the time!

@ TT: Thanks for the Wiki entry! :-))

@ Linda: It does keep me busy! In fact after days of rain I moved everything on, or up close, to the railing further in where the rain can't reach them - I was worried the plants might get waterlogged & drowned! We get the run-off water from the balconies above ours as our balcony is a bit wider then those above us.

@ Thank you, Amy. You are right that the Pansies & Daffodils will brighten the days up, especially when they are in full flower in the spring as you say! :-))

@ Hywel: They do make a good colour combination it's true. It's something I've done over many winters now. The last 3 years have been bad for my Pansies & I've not been able to achieve the spring display with them as most have rotted away. I certainly hope they will do better this winter/spring!

I have no front garden to speak of at the new house so I will have to use some of your skills to brighten the front up....hanging baskets etc!

That's better than nothing, Paul! :-))

Just read your blog. I couldn’t work out how you managed to get so many plants on you balcony. I can see how you do it now; very clever. And I see you have table and chairs too. I can’t wait to see it in full bloom. I enjoyed your blog and photos, looking forward to the next one.

Thanks, but all these bulbs & flowers have practically finished for this year! At the end of May every year I do the change over from spring flowers to the summer bedding. In October I do the change over to winter bedding.

This is something I've done for the 15 years we have lived here. I do try to change the planting a bit but the stalwarts are always Daffs & Crocuses + Pansies over the winter & then for the summer I have a greater choice of what to plant so most years the summer planting looks different from previous years.

Geraniums & Pelargoniums + Sweet Peas & Morning Glory are the summer stalwarts most years. Then I plant something different as the main show for the summer. This year that will be Begonias - I hope - the majority are tubers planted during the last week or so that I hope will grow quickly.

I'm sure it will look lovely I bet it’s nice sitting out there with a nice cup of tea. Can you move bulbs once you’re planted them? I want to dig them up and plant them somewhere else. Would I be able to do that?

It might be but we rarely do! I "clog" the balcony up with far too many plants for my wife's liking - at least for sitting out there. I sometimes do sit out there during the summer & try to read a book or just sit idly watching the parents of the children, who go to the school just over the road, go by! Often though it gets too hot & the sunshine can be extremely bright. The balcony faces more or less Southwest so gets all the sunshine going from 11am till sunset! We are blessed in that respect! At 9pm this evening the sunshine was streaming in through the small window over the kitchen sink as the sky was totally devoid of clouds & this window faces Northwest. We were able to see the bright red ball of the sun setting & it was blinding!

As for moving your bulbs once they have finished flowering, yes, you can. But it is better to wait until the leaves have turned yellow before doing so as this way the food for next year's flowers will have been stored in the bulbs.

Do you have somewhere to put them till the autumn when they can be replanted again? If you plan to store them out of the ground make sure they dry out for a few days & then put them in a dark, cool place. You will need to be able to check on them occasionally to make sure they haven't got too dry or are rotting.