Pimp my Balcony!

Having a little refuge, something that belongs to you and nobody else, is a great luxury. To me, it's my balcony. I might not have the best of views (my neighbors ^^) but I love sitting out there and read, think, have an after-work-glass-of-wine or my sunday breakfast.

But I neglected my balcony this year, and by mid-june it looked somethings like this :


Not so pretty, and definitely not the right place to be spending relaxing afternoon hours on. It actually looked like this, I did not mess it up more for effect.
So I went to buy some flowers at my local florist, and got a little discount because I bought so many plants. Also, that gave my the satisfying feeling of supporting small local businesses. Try it, it's a good feeling ;)


These beauties will even come back next year. Isn't that one amazing colour?

The hibiskus I got for my birthday. It has three huge pink blossoms by now and by the looks of it, there's going to be more of them!


Star of Bethlehem and lobelia make a great colour combo. Who said you can't have flowers that clash? :) The pink hibiskus sits right next to them...

Of course, you can get edible plants too. They are not quite as pretty usually, but having them also means having free organic food all autumn - rad! I have a tiny chili tree that's more like a chili bonsai, but has great super-hot chilis, some herbs (all legal ;) ) and tomatoes. I wanted to get more, but ran out of room for plants. Instead of giving up, I got this wrought-iron shelf and now have more space than plants. I'm sure I can solve that problem soon!

Growing your plants from the seeds and being able to enjoy the results as a dinner is probably the most gratifying thing you can do on a balcony that won't cause your neighbors give you cross looks :)

I cleaned up some more and planted new flowers since I took the pictures and will update you soon with a few tricks to make balcony-fit furniture out of almost nothing. Now go outside and enjoy the sun!