I went to a friend’s house today and gave some suggestions for the balcony garden of the new house. Many owners will have such a situation. When they first started gardening, they didn’t know how to start. Here are some experiences to share, hoping to help everyone.
❓Question 1: I don’t know what style suits me/what kind of flowers I can grow
The balcony garden I saw today is located on the low floors facing north in Chicago. The surrounding buildings are more sheltered, with less direct light but sufficient scattered light. This basically determines the tone of the garden. Although there is insufficient light, you can still choose a variety of beautiful begonia leaves, Araceae plants, and Gesneriaceae that can still bloom under low light, which can add a lot of color to the small balcony. So instead of choosing styles and plants according to your preferences, there is another important thing:
‼ ️First of all, you must understand the environment of your garden‼ ️
What is the orientation, how many hours can be exposed to the sun a day, whether there is any shelter around, the ventilation effect, how the original soil drainage effect is, whether it is a potted plant in the ground or a flower pond…
Choose the right plants according to the environment to achieve the effect easily. Forcing plants to grow in an environment they are not suitable for, there are only endless pests and diseases.
❓Question 2: Is a garden full of favorite flowers?
Today, I would like to remind you that if you want to choose a popular gardening plant like clematis hydrangea, it is best to choose only one hydrangea and no more than two clematises of the F series. why? Plants include skeleton plants and other filler plants. Hydrangea rose clematis These are skeleton plants:
❌All skeleton plants = nursery
❌All Filler Plants = Nursery
If you want to have a sense of a garden, you must set up high and low levels. A garden with only a headshot is not a garden. Moreover, it is more suitable to choose Araceae and some coniferous trees with colorful leaves, which are beautiful in all seasons, as the skeleton.
❓Question 3: As long as the garden is beautiful and beautiful flowers are enough?
This has nothing to do with the site I saw today, but it is an insight from my long-term work: gardening is an art of time, and it is not a year or a half to look good, but to be beautiful all the time✊🏻. To achieve this, it is often to work hard on places that cannot be seen, such as the drainage method of the garden, soil improvement, and pipeline layout… rather than just planting plants there to look good. Like me, drainage and soil improvement are very important, once and for all, only when the plant has a good root system can it grow robustly.