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Planting Bulbs

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Earlier this summer I bought these rad flower pots (yes, rad) and then went crazy and lined our whole balcony rail with them. Since then, they’ve been empty, but as fall was approaching, I decided to plant bulbs in all the pots to enjoy next spring.Planting bulbs in the autumn is something my father always does, so I was reminded of him a lot as I dug all the holes for the bulbs.I am still not sure how well bulbs will do in pots instead of ground soil, but I tried to buy bulbs that matched the depth of soil in my pots.The red dot on the packs also says “also for balconies and pots”, so I am hoping they are happy bulbs. Our balcony is pretty sheltered from wind in the courtyard, so they shouldn’t freeze too much.
I couldn’t buy exactly the kind my Dad gets because he plants deeper in the ground, but I did manage to find some varieties that are close to his daffodils.We’ll see what happens!

Have you ever planted flower bulbs? How did they turn out?

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Inheriting Plants

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Going to my FIL’s house to go through my MIL’s things has not been the highlight of the summer, but my FIL would rather purge everything now. It’s helping him heal and we need to organize her things some time anyway, but that doesn’t make it easier.

My MIL was always the gardener and my FIL let us know he planned to get  rid of everything because he is not interested in plants, cannot keep up with the watering, and is pretty sure he would kill everything. We tried to organize a transport van in June to pick everything up, but the reservation was messed up, so we planned to do it after Luxembourg in what had to be the hottest week of the summer.

While the boys loaded the van, I stayed in the hot house and finished going through clothing, makeup, and jewelry. Below you see my sweaty face… just imagine trying on clothing in a house without AC in the high 90s. Melting!! While clothes are easy for the boys to let go, it made me sad to go through them. They all still smell like her. I can see why my FIL doesn’t want them around anymore. I saved a bunch of her scarves and now I have a lot of clothes to go through at home.

Also pinned up in the office on her wardrobe was a photo of my family from Christmas 2012. With family being so important to my MIL, she made it a priority to write down all of their names so she could learn all the names of my siblings and their spouses. It was just another sign of how much this woman truly loved and valued her family, whether it was in Switzerland, Brazil, or the US.

Back outside, the transport van didn’t have AC either and the fans were kind of broken. I was really just dreaming about jumping in lake Zurich, but we managed to transport this huge lot of plants home.The hard part was then moving them from the van to the flat, up the lift, and out onto the balcony. Kay was sweating bucket loads by the time we finished.Almost this whole line of plants were my MIL’s. She had so many! And they are gorgeous.It feels great to fill up the balcony with some pots finally, but I’m sad about the way in which we came about all the plants.

I can’t help wanting to show my MIL how the plants look here. She loved looking through my garden and seeing what I did differently. I hope I can keep her plants for awhile without doing them harm. They are so different than what I plant myself!

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Funny flower pots

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So, I found these really cool flower pots at Migros and they kind of persuaded me to buy a bunch of flowers to fill them up with. Yes, the flower pots told me to. Shhh.

Sigh, I fall for flowers every time.

I chose all my mixes based on what is supposed to do well with a LOT of sun, because that’s what this balcony gets. Also, preferably not daily watering. I’m a little lazy, y’all. 😉

I also chose some roses to add into the mix since the climbing roses have done so well from last year.

Now, onto the pots. These are for the banisters and they are different in that they kind of sit like a saddle on top of a banister, so you don’t have that sad probably of a wobbly, slanted hanging basket that I always had with our other row pots.

Plus, look at the cool colors they come in! Lime green and purple! Those are OUR colors! 😉

My roses are still going crazy. I’m really loving them. 🙂

View from the banister below to the courtyard.

 Yup, good purchase here.

The only problem is that they only fill up like a smidgen of our terrace. I could seriously buy like twenty more of these pots to fill the whole banister.

Right now I set them on the side next to my flower area so that I can see them from the kitchen window, and that makes me happy. 🙂

Also, check out my gorgeous roses over here. I am really in love!

We’ve had a lot of thunderstorm nights lately, but it’s great to finally be enjoying the balcony at summer again.

A warm night with a caipirinha on the terrace… ahhh.

What parts of summer are you loving so far?

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April Garden

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Happy Swiss labor day everyone!

I’m excited that my cilantro seeds are actually sprouting! Last year I tried to start them in a pot outside, but I think that I did not keep them moist enough, so they dried out and sort of burned in the sun. Oops.

But not this year! Look at them!

I don’t think the sage likes having the tree bark around it. Whenever I use this bark in pots, it seems to kill whatever plant is there. It must be messing with the Ph or acidity levels too much. But I don’t know enough about horticulture to know why exactly.

Oregano is looking good.

As is the starter cilantro plant.

I planted my starter parsley in the same box as our bamboo and it seems like it is competing with the bamboo. The bamboo in there has not gone totally crazy, so I thought there should still be room for some other things to flourish, but it might be too difficult for the parsley.

Rosemary doing fine in a pot on top of the bamboo box.

Not sure I put enough soil on the basil, it’s kinda flopping already. I’m a little too lazy to re-pot it though this late.

The thyme probably needs moved out of the sun and rain.

The lavender is going nuts in its little corner of its box, next to the clematis, which looks like it’s also doing all right after being planted last summer.

I think these are my tomato seeds sprouting.

…and these should be my… lettuce? I forget which pot this photo is from. 🙂

So, that’s about where things are at this point. Kay’s been walking around the balcony pulling weeds because he gets nervous that they will destroy the roof of the flat below our balcony.

I’ve also been rearranging garden furniture, but I’m not quite happy with it. I always seem to try a new setup each year. We’ll see what I settle on for 2015.

How is your garden doing?