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#1
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Apartment Gardening
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 |
#2
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Apartment Gardening
"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. |
#3
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Apartment Gardening
"ratSenoL" wrote in message om... | "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 snip Harmony Gardens is fun because the guys there propagate a lot of their own plants and sometimes in a pot you'll find a surprise plant later on. |
#4
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Apartment Gardening
I've been container growing at home for twenty years, mostly because
I've moved a lot and never wanted to leave plants for my landlord. When I lived at married student housing down on Lake Austin Blvd. we had this little four by six foot concrete patio that was just big enough for a lawn chair and served for most folks in the apartment as a "patio". I nailed together 1 by six lumber, filled it with bulk potting soil and had an instant patio garden. Most landloards I imagine would not be too happy about that but I got away with it mostly because having UT as a landlord they were perhaps not paying much attention. I've got one hundred pots I use for my current garden, and have tried just about everything I could at one time or another in pots. I keep a limit of one hundred so I don't get carried away. I'm sure there will be lots of lists with the obvious canidates, but some of the more unusual ones I like in pots a Beets ( I've got those right now, and pick leaves for our salad. ) Osaka Purple Mustard ( another oranmental and edible green I'm harvesting ) Sedum Mexicana ( very tough sedum with little yellow flowers that trail out of the pot ) Sambac Jasmine ( Very fragrant, right by the front door, this is the first year I kept it out during the freeze and it still survived ) Bay Laurel tree ( I harvest the top so it never gets more than 18'") Of the herbs, Rosemary is real finicky about well drained soil and not overwatering, oregano grows like a weed, I have to replant thyme constantly because my wife makes me grow it, but I've never had much luck with it. As far as Basil goes I do it from seed because a bunch of young plants crowded together do better for me than one of those high dollar four inch pots. Another good thing about container patio growing is that if your getting old and decrepit like me you can hoist the pot up onto a table to work and not have to spend so much time bending over. take care, and by the way thanks for the folks who sent the tips on deer resistant gardens, now I know why everyone's yard west of Mopac looks the same. Steve Coyle One more thing, the biggest pest that bothers apartment gardens are the pernacious 'landlords', My dear old mom lived in the luxurious Rio Hondo apartments in Hyde Park and for some reason the landlord had this almost obsessive hatred of green growing things. She battled him to a draw over her potted plants by being relentlessly stubborn about putting them out, and she snuck around the complex planting seeds and tree seedlings, a couple of which finally grew big enough for him to give up trying to kill with round up. |
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