I love our balcony gardens. I talk about them frequently. While small in size, they are large in opportunity. One measures 6 x 8, has a wooden pergola, and gets full sun. The other is 6 x 10, has a metal roof, and gets absolutely no sunlight; but it’s a beautiful thing to sit and listen to the rain on that tin roof. Each of them have provided, what I consider to be, some of life’s little surprises over the time we’ve spent here. And I’ve recently discovered that the secret to the surprise, is in the waiting.
Herbs love sunshine…
The first year we were here, I planted herbs on our back balcony patio. There is a door right off the back of our kitchen, and it seemed to be the perfect location for a meager kitchen garden. I planted rosemary and thyme, sage and lavender, basil, oregano, and mint. I’d grown all of these herbs successfully on the patio of our previous home, and I believed myself to have a green thumb and be a successful container gardener.
And while that back balcony garden was the perfect location for me, it was not the perfect location for the herbs. They reached and strained toward the railing, hoping to catch a glimmer of sunlight. By mid summer, I had lost almost all of my herbs to lack of sufficient light.
The next summer, I planted the same variety of herbs in an herb box on the front balcony patio. It receives full sunlight, and rain, and it’s a beautiful place to be. The herbs thrived. But I did not thrive. Because the front balcony patio is very waspy. There are always wasps hovering about, and I am irrationally terrified of wasps. So the herbs thrived, but I withered with fear. I rarely went out to harvest them, and they were more ornamental than herbaceous.
Coral bells love shade…
The next year, I planted shade loving plants on our back balcony. At our previous home, I had beautiful heucheras that grew quickly in the front garden beds, but faded just as quickly in the hot summer sun. Here, the heucheras (coral bells) thrived in the shade. In fact, they even bloomed beautiful tall stalks with delicate flower petals. Gorgeous!
The back balcony is also a great place for other shade-loving plants like impatiens, English ivy, and hellebores. And learning which plants thrived in which location provides us two very different, and very beautiful garden spaces. Which is amazing seeing as we live in a second-story apartment.
The winter garden…
This past autumn, I cleared out the herb box on the front balcony long after the threat of wasps had passed. I felt defeated after two years of struggling to find an equilibrium with my beloved herbs. So I cleared the herb box, and moved it from the front of the patio to the back of the patio where it could over-winter.
I cleared away the foliage from the shade annuals planted on the back balcony, and cleaned the pots to store away until spring. But heucheras and English ivy are perennials and have proven to be winter-hardy in this growth zone. Knowing they would need a little sunlight, water, and access to the elements over the winter months, I literally tossed them into the herb box on the front balcony; two green heucheras, one purple. Then, I placed the pods of English ivy along the front of the planter box. And I left them there, near the window on the front balcony, all winter long.
I watched them through the kitchen window throughout the colder nights of October and November, through the blistering cold of December and January. They survived the wind, the rain, the snow, and the ice storm we had in February. And in the spring, rather than disrupt the plants for repotting, I decided to simply move the entire planter box to the back balcony. If they survived the winter, they would spring to life again. If not, I would replant something new.
Windows of opportunity…
When I moved the planter box to the back balcony, it left an empty spot on the front patio. Knowing herbs would grow well on the front balcony, but still trying to brave myself against the wasps, it occurred to me to plant herbs in terracotta pots and place them on a tiered stand, near that same kitchen window I watched the heucheras and Ivy through during the winter. This sunny location would allow them the sunlight and rain they needed, and I could access them simply by raising the window. No more wasp wars!
Now, I have a beautiful shade garden out my kitchen door to the balcony, and I have a thriving, healthy herb garden waiting right outside my kitchen window. And I don’t have to leave the safety of my home to harvest them.
Life’s little surprises…
Sometimes life gives us beautiful little surprises. Like planter boxes filled with blooming heucheras and trailing ivy. Or thriving, healthy herbs growing right outside the window sill. We simply have to be patient enough to wait for them to appear.
Some folks call this trial and error. I see it as the beauty of waiting. Our world is face-paced and we tend to want immediate gratification, immediate results. But there is also beauty in slowly watching and waiting, learning from observation, and reaping good results over time.
We can struggle and strain to find the right solution to our troubles, but in the right place, and at the right time, we will look out the window and see all the beauty that has bloomed right before our very eyes.
The secret is in the waiting…
