View Close up of balcony from street 28-07-2011

I really like it, people must stop and admire all these beauties :)))

I certainly used to get people stopping & commenting how nice it looked but nobody, except folk from my church, have said anything this year!

looking good Balcony...

Thank you, Holly! :-))

Your balcony has become very colourful and beautiful as well.

Thank you, Camillia, I'm pleased you like my little "garden"! :-))

There is no question of not liking it.It is fabulous :)

smiles, happens when people get used to seeing something beautiful nearby - admire at first, but they get used to it and take it for granted because it's "always been there". One reason I really wouldn't want to live somewhere stunningly beauiful: I'd hate to think that I'd become so used to it that I wouldn't really see it and appreciate it after a while!

How many hours a day, or per week, do you spend working on it, roughly? and you have an allotment as well?!

Thanks, Camillia!

Fran, I don't spend more than about an hour a day on it & that is mainly watering! I do a little deadheading of the Petunias that are in the pots outside the railings in the rings/hoops.

After everything is planted there's little else to do! The planting up of the balcony takes a few days & is very hard work. There is so little room to move around & with the pain in my back I have to be very careful with my movements or I will get a terrible pain that will cause me to "scream" in agony for a second, it dies down to a low intensity pain. But that will be repeated for as long as I'm working out there. It becomes very debilitating after a while & I easily become fatigued. That's a price I pay twice a year for about a week at a time as I do the change around of the winter & summer bedding.

As the balcony is so small I can't have permanent plants that flower perhaps for a couple of weeks a year & then have nothing but boring leaves for the other 10 or 11 months of the year! I know there are some plants with a long flowering season but you can also become bored of seeing the same old flowers month in month out! At least with bedding plants I can ring the changes twice a year & grow different plants each year. This year I'm growing mainly Petunias & Busy Lizzies but I've also got a lot of Lobelias & a lot of China Pinks from the seeds my wife brought back from Spain last year.

I know that feeling! I get two types of back pain; one makes me yelp and jerk as soon as it happens (usually because I’ve turned too far round from the waist); the other doesn’t kick in till the next day, when my back and shoulders make me pay for what I did the day before – it’s hard to remember to pace myself when I get stuck in to a task – and when the bill isn’t presented till the day after, when it’s much too late to do anything about it.

I’ve planted everything, all there is to do now is water them when the rain doesn’t do it for me, or move pots just for the sake of something to do, which doesn’t appeal to me much. I don’t do much dead-heading, my petunias don’t seem to need it yet or, if they do, not enough for me to have noticed. And, of course, remember to check my cherry stones - might actually get one or two out of the couple of dozen

But I mostly go for foliage plants: the different shades of green, different textures, different plant and leaf shapes, all add up to quiet interest all year round, or most of it. A spectacular display such as yours would be too much like hard work for me *s*. My ideal is a woodland feel, quiet harmony where I can chill.

Do you do your potting etc on the balcony itself? I’ve got some books on tiny gardens, patios, and balconies, and they seem to be nothing but plants; none ever shows a worktable or storage space, so all the work must be done indoors – fine, if one has the space indoors!

I’ve got some wall planters which I intend to have placed once I’ve painted the wall (thought white would deflect more light into my space, it only gets an hour or so of direct sunlight around noon). I plan on mostly scented plants – night-scented stock under my bedroom windows, day-scented stock under the lounge ones – with something bright in between – pansies or busy lizzies for choice, but it depends what's on offer when I get ready to plant.