"Jimmy" wrote in message ...
Hi Everyone,

Is there a good resource out there for us apartment dwellers for patio
gardening? Recommended books, gardening shops up north?

Thank you in advance,

Jim

Jim,

Up north, you might try the Red Barn at 183/620 for plants and advice.
I haven't been to that one in years, but have had good experiences
with the Red Barn down south. My mom likes Harmony Gardens on N.
Lamar, but I haven't checked it out myself. Perhaps the best resource
for gardening in Austin is Natural Gardener
(http://www.naturalgardeneraustin.com/). Although it's in Southwest
Austin, it's well worth a Saturday afternoon expedition, IMHO. The
folks there have always given me great advice, both when I lived in
apartment with a tiny balcony and now that we have a house with a
yard.

As to patio gardening in general, it would be useful to know a few
things like which direction your patio faces, how much of a cover it
has (i.e., how much sun does it get), and what it faces (e.g.,
building, parking lot?). How much sun and how hot your patio gets
can create challenges (and opportunities) for gardening. For example,
our last apartment, before we bought the house, not only faced south,
but also overlooked an asphalt parking lot, so our balcony was
extraordinarily hot. We still had great looking rosemary, kolanchoes,
chili pepins (petins?), portalaca, aloe, and more, all in containers,
of course. We even managed to keep a croton and a spider plant on the
balcony in the hottest summer months, but had to give them a lot of
water to compensate for the heat. I'm not sure which was the bigger
challenge--beating the heat or having to lug all those plants inside
during freezes!

In previous apartments I had excellent luck with hibiscus (the trick I
found for these guys is to add about a half a teaspoon of vinegar or
so per gallon of water) and a variety of Mediterranean herbs.