I never was a great gardener but since we arrived in Germany and got a balcony I decided to give it a go. I had been gathering Impatiens Walleriana seeds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impatiens_walleriana for quite a few years but never got round to planting them. So last year I seeded them, watered them and waited. To my great surprise and pleasure it worked! And I got lovely pink flowers from June to end of September (even some early October). I learned an important lesson though: the flower pots did not contain enough soil, they were not hanging from the balcony but were standing on the ground, and finally I had far too many of them in one pot. This made them grow extremely tall and thin. They lived well for many months but they did not look too pretty by the end of the season!
Then I collected again their seeds (plus some from town as I wanted other colours) and this year early March I planted them in small temporary plastic containers. Again they grew (so it is my 2nd generation!) and I planted them, spacing them carefully and giving some to my mother-in-law. Unfortunately this Spring was very hot and I lost a good number of them (I started with over 40 shoots and ended up with about 20, but at least the remaining ones are strong. This morning I had the pleasure of seeing my first flower bud and right now the flower is fully open and pretty!
I tried to post more picture but the connection is a bit slow so I will talk about my peach trees another time!
hey fred! how beautiful! i'm busy but still reading your blog. sorry that i havn't commented lately but i liked the cushion covers and the table deco, too. but back to gardening. isn't it lovely to see the plants grow? and what's best, if they are vegetables or fruits you can also harvest! we have our garden for two years now and i'm so happy with it that i don't want to live without it ever again. so... have a great summer with your little balcony garden :-)
ReplyDeletegreets
No worries about the lack of comments, thanks to the stats (loving playing around with them) I can see that you are reading (i think you are my main reader actually).
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed lovely to see plants grow. I wanted to grow some tomatoes and carrots this year but didn't manage to get properly organised so that will be for next year instead.
Have a lovely Sunday (hope it is not rainy at yours like it is here in Saxony!)
J'ai des graines pour toi !!!! De nouvelles impatiens. Des "rustiques" très jolies !
ReplyDeletebisous;
Chouette! Merci, on verra ce que ca donne l'année prochaine. Cette année j'ai semé des roses et des blanches et j'ai obtenu des roses et des fushias... va savoir pourquoi!
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