It’s now been over 75 days since I sowed the first seeds for my new balcony garden and today I’m sharing my little garden’s progress in the end of May garden tour! I hope you will enjoy a lovely stroll through my garden as I walk you through what’s currently going on. So get yourself a drink or snack and let’s go for a walk!
This post is featured in the Garden Gander link party. Come share your garden, discover and visit others!
Interesting Weather This Spring
It’s been quite a spring. I’m in a new location with a very different climate than I’ve been used to, plus the terrace is a sun trap, with a unique micro-climate, so I’ve been trying to adjust and get used to how things behave out there. Learning what thrives and what struggles, moving things around according to the sun and wind and shadows. Constantly adjusting.
Aside from all that, I’ve been told that the weather has been very unusual for this time of year. So, there have been many ups and downs in the garden, lots of growth, as well as some losses, either way, there have been many lessons!
* Click on images to zoom in.
Let’s Start With The Dahlias
I have four 40cm pots on wheels which each have a Dahlia in the center. I’ve also planted or sown various companions around them. The plan was to have some blooms and interest throughout the year, so I’ve got things in each pot that should bloom in a sort of succession throughout the seasons.
Apart from the Dahlia, each pot also has a Hellebore, flowering African grass (Anomatheca Laxa), African Tulips (Homeria), Sweet Alyssum and Oxalis Triangularis.
I have no experience growing any of those, except the Alyssum, so I’m learning as I go.
The Hellebores failed to thrive. They had sprouted in their bags during shipping, and once planted, they just withered away. Two came back up again, but have since vanished once more. Not sure if they will ever show up again.
The purple Oxalis was the first thing to flower in my garden, with its dainty violet blooms. They’ve just kept flowering continuously since about April, which I love. Those triangular leaves are also really beautiful, they really do look like butterlies in the breeze!
Their blooms form on the ends of long thin stems which arch and bob around in the breeze. And they only open in direct sunlight. So cool!
The Alyssum popped up quickly, but it only just starting to bloom and although the Dahlias were the first to sprout in those pots, they have yet to set any buds. I did pinch them back though, so I might have delayed the blooming a little by trying to encourage a bushier habit.
The African flowering grass has come up, but it hasn’t bloomed yet. I look forward to seeing those in flower too, but it might be too late in teh season for them. They’re a coral red-ish colour which I think would work pretty well with the other colours in these pots.
The African Tulips are putting on a lovely show. Each bloom only opens for one day, but they come in succession, so each morning it’s a treat to go out and see which ones have opened. They have a range of colours from pale yellow to peachy and orange.
As you can see from these photos, the colour pallette in these pots is a range of warm tones from the pale yellow to the muted peachy orange tulips along with the coral red grasses earlier in the season. Then later the various shades of copper, orange and coral-pink of the Dahlias too. With the underplanting of the cooler toned purple Oxalis and white Alyssum.
I’m hoping it’s going to look as good as it does in my head!
The Cherry Tree And Blueberry Bushes
The largest pot on the terrace at the moment is the Cherry. It’s a 60cm pot with a Dwarf Cherry Tree in the middle. I’d like to grow a beneficial guild all around the base too, but for now I’ve got dwarf Zinnias, Borage and Snapdragons in it. No flowers yet.
There was Chamomile too, but it’s too hot now and it’s going over without having bloomed. I’ll have to sow it again in the cooler season.
The Cherry tree looks super healthy. I have found a couple of caterpillars on it since it arrived, but I picked them off and yeeted them over the railing (there’s greenery below, so they will either find food or become food down there).
I won’t mind hosting them later on, but the tree is too young to have the caterpillars decimate all its leaves before its established.
Fascinating Insect Behaviour
Another fascinating visitor to the Cherry has been wasps! I noticed this odd behaviour and had to look into it. Apparently they like to drink the nectar from the base of the leaves. Each leaf has 2 little nectary glands at its base, where the stem meets the leaf.
So the wasps land on the leaf, crawl up to the stem, where the 2 little nectary glands are, and they have a drink. So fascinating to see!
I have 2 Blueberry bushes too. They’re in the same type of pots as the Dahlias. One is a pink variety and the other is a blue variety. The blue one is tiny, it came way smaller than the pink one and has not caught up yet. Both are looking healthy though, but no signs of blooms or berries yet, they’re both just twigs with leaves for now.
I’ve also underplanted the Blueberries. They each have basil, origano, red clover, chives and borage. The borage is potentially too large for the one Blueberry bush and I might pull it out, but otherwise everything is coming in nicely.
Mystery Plants In My Pots
Weirdly enough, all 3 of these berry pots have got mystery plants growing in them too!
Maybe you can help me identify them?
Under the Cherry there is this plant with arrow shaped leaves. In one of the Blueberries there’s this leafy green plant, it doesn’t smell like Basil, so I’m not sure what it is. In both Blueberry pots there is this plant with long thin sword shaped leaves and cascading white flower stalks.
We have had Sparrows, Blue Tits and Collared Doves visiting the garden, so it is possible they’ve dropped some seed, or perhaps the seed came with the trees in their nursery pots.
What’s Growing In The Greenstalk Tower?
This is my first time ever growing in a tower planter like the Greenstalk. I had been wishing for one for years and was super excited to finally have one. Unfortunately my greens and herbs and even the strawberries in my planter have not put on as much growth as I expected, but I don’t think it’s the planter’s fault.
The slow growth is likely due to the soil we bought. It turned out to be very woody and actually doesn’t hold onto moisture as much as I thought woody fibres would. Maybe it has not been broken down enough.
The soil was also infested with little fungus gnat eggs, because I’ve had these little gnats all over my garden since I started sowing in March. They even find their way inside since I have the windows open most of the day. So frustrating!
I do have a worm farm and Bokashi composting bins, so I will have some compost to add nutrition at some point, but none of that is ready yet, so things will just have to grow slower for the time being. It’s okay.
The strawberries are growing and the first berries are turning red, which is super exciting. This week I will be harvesting the first of the lettuce and I have already harvested some basil. I’ve planted mostly cut and come again varieties of lettuce, but I’ll likely sow new seeds soon to hopefully have a succession of salad greens, if I can keep them alive through the summer heat.
Tomatoes, Peppers, Aubergines
I’m still waiting for the delivery of my large raised wooden planters, so most of my tomatoes, peppers and aubergines are still in 12cm pots. Some spares are in smaller pots or seed snails.
So far the Gold Nugget and Brad’s Atomic Grape have produced fruit and the Pigeon Heart is in bloom. The rest of the tomatoes are looking healthy, but have not set any flowers yet.
I’ve gone ahead and seeded each tomato pot with its companions, since there was a delay on the planters. So each pot has a different variety of Tomato, Basil and Marigold.
The tomatoes have already been potted up once, and planted deeply, and I have also removed the bottom few sets of leaves since the underplanted seedlings have started growing. They look a bit leggy, but they are really sturdy, I just wanted to improve airflow and light to the seedlings.
The peppers were really slow to grow. I eventually figured out that it would be beneficial to bring them indoors every night as temperatures were still below 15 degrees C. I thought above 10 would be good enough, but apparently they get stunted below 15, so I started bringing them in at night and they started growing again. Lesson learned for next year.
They are looking really healthy, but no blooms yet. They’re still pretty small though, so I’ll wait.
The only pepper that is not really putting on much growth is the Chinese 5 Colour, but it is a smaller variety, so maybe it is actually growing at the same rate as the others, just compact in nature.
The aubergines are also finally taking off since I potted them up into these larger pots and brought them indoors at night along with the peppers.
Ground Cherries
It’s my first time growing Ground Cherries. I was pleasantly surprised to discover this plant stays pretty small and compact. Perfect for a container garden. I’ve only ever tasted one in my life, but was super excited to grow them
I love the little paper lantern like covers over the fruit. The blooms are so lovely and two of the three plants are already producing fruit. I cannot wait to taste these!
The Verbena is blooming so well this month and it smells absolutely devine! I keep it near the flowering vegetables and fruit to hopefully increase the chances of pollination. I’d love to get more of these, I’d never seen one in person and was really happy to discover it is such a sweetly scented flower!
Mediterranean Herbs
Apart from the herbs I’m growing from seed for the Greenstalk tower and around the base of the Blueberries and Tomatoes, I also bought some herb starts from a nursery.
The ones that came as starts are Cascading Rosemary, Sage and Thyme.
I had 2 varieties of Sage, one variegated with white and green, and the other has green leaves with purple ombre tones. The variegated plant seems to have completely died. I’m treating it as if it’s still alive, but I’m not sure it will be able to bounce back.
This purple toned one is very much alive and producing new leaves, but it’s also got a lot of spots on the leaves. I’m not sure what is causing this.
I did take cuttings from both varieties early on and most of them took and started growing, but they have also started showing signs of distress lately.
I’m not sure if it’s the heat, humidity, insects or my watering that is causing the issues. I really love Sage though, so I hope these plants will bounce back.
The variegated Thyme plants both turned really crispy and brown at one point, but I cut them back and removed any parts that were completely crispy. After a couple of weeks they are sprouting so much new growth!
A similar thing had happened to the Creeping Thyme a while back, it was looking very sad after initially blooming, but after cutting it back and paying more attention to the moisture levels, it too had come back and seems to be doing okay now.
I am glad I didn’t give up on these plants and kept treating them as if they were alive, because despite appearances, they really were! I hope the Sage will eventually bounce back too.
Courgettes, Cucumbers, Pattypan & Melon
I have a couple of different courgette varieties, both Cocozelle types. One is striped in shades of green and the other is a light grey green colour.
I’ve got one orange variety of Pattypan which I’m very excited to try. Apparently they can taste a bit like artichoke. Yum!
I’m also growing Silver Slicer cucumbers and Mexican Cucamelons as well as a little personal sized melon, called Minnesota Midget.
These plants have all put on so much growth. They all started blooming this month too. Every day there are fresh flowers, but they are all male. Only the Silver Slicer Cucumber has produced some female (fruiting) flowers, but they’ve not been successfully pollinated yet.
Lack Of Flowers = Lack Of Pollinators
I think the lack of flowers on my balcony/terrace is causing the lack of pollination. Not enough insects are coming by yet. There have been a few wasps, some solitary bees, some hoverflies and moths. But they have not been very frequent.
We do have some large black ants that stop by daily and a few spiders that have taken up residence.
I have plans to hang flowers and herbs in railing planters all along the outer perimeter to attract the pollinators, but once again, I do not have the planters yet, and all of my flowering plants are growing really slowly this year. I only have the Oxalis, Verbena and African Tulips at the moment, also one Marigold flower and a couple of tiny Alyssum.
Being pretty high up with nothing hanging over the railings to draw attention, I doubt I’ll have enough pollinators stopping by until later in the season when more things are in bloom.
Flowers That Have Yet To Bloom
I’ve planted many things to attract pollinators, but for now the garden remains very green. It’s fine though, this is a brand new garden, so it will take time to establish.
Here’s a list of plants I’m growing specifically for pollinators:
- Yarrow
- Borage
- Lavender
- Zinnias
- Nasturtiums
- Marigolds
- Verbena
- Chives
- Alyssum
- Geraniums
- Clover
- Various herbs
I’ve got many other flowering plants like the Dahlias, Pulmonaria, Hellebores, Snapdragons, Oxalis, the African grasses and Tulips, Crocosmia, Narcissus, Nerine, Anemone.
For now everything is still in small pots, so growth is slow due to lack of space and nutrients in the limited soil they have. I’m sure that once these plants are planted into the larger raised beds, they will grow faster and hopefully start producing flowers. I can’t wait!
Are You A Blogger And A Gardener?
I’ve created a gardening link party to help us find more gardening bloggers to follow. I’d love to have you join us in the weekly Garden Gander, so please do stop by and share your latest gardening updates!
After all the research I’ve been doing in preparation of my brand new garden this year (2026), I realised that there are many new gardeners out there and so many of them have been looking for garden blogs to follow.
People seem to be after relatable gardening content from regular gardeners. There seems to be a general indifference towards huge garden businesses, homesteaders or influencers, and a desire to connect with simply the average human trying to grow something in whatever space they have available. People sharing the realistic ups and downs of gardening.
Looking into it more, I could not find a garden focused link party/blog hop, so I decided to create one! I really enjoy link parties and have participated in many throughout the decades I’ve been blogging. I hope that this one will eventually become a fun place for us to discover new gardens and maybe even make new garden friends.
Here is the post I wrote to explain how it works: Garden Gander Link Party. I can’t wait to discover your garden!
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