Gardening: Planting a Bloomin’ Flower Box

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Ryan and I have a small balcony off the back of our third-floor apartment. Since the view of the garage isn’t that great, I decided to beautify the balcony with flower boxes. Naturally, I want to plant blossoms that attract bees and butterflies, but which will also last all summer. Native plants too, if I can swing it. And I’ll consider it a bonus if the flowers are fragrant as well!

One of my favourite flowers is the nasturtium, which I think I first read about as a kid in a Milly Molly Mandy book. I wanted the cascading variety that will spill over the window box. A few weeks ago, I started nasturtiums from seeds in my little indoor greenhouse, and over the May long weekend I finally had time to plant them outside (and hopefully there is no more risk of frost).

I also adore these tiny pansies, which look like little attentive faces. I planted these hanging baskets first, a few weeks ago, since the pansies are quite hardy and can survive the cold temperatures of early May.

My mom gave us two rectangular flower boxes as well as the metal brackets for installing them on our balcony railings. I ensured that each flower box had drainage holes, and then filled them with potting soil.

I mounted the flower box brackets to the patio railing and placed the box on top. Since we are on the third floor balcony, I don’t want to kill someone below if a raccoon decides to mess around with the flower boxes and send them tumbling down. I secured each flower box to the railing with plastic zip ties. They aren’t pretty, but once the plants are established they should spill over and hide the zip ties.

For the south side flower box, I planted bacopa plants, one on each end. Then, moving in towards the centre of the box, I planted snapdragons, sweet alyssum and nasturtiums, and marigolds. In the centre of this flower box, I added creeping jenny.

For the north side flower box, I planted, from left to right, candy shower snapdragons, marigold, snapdragon,sweet alyssum, nasturtium, marigold, and pink bacopa.

In the southwest corner of our balcony, I have a wooden plant stand from Ikea, on which I have a pots of strawberry mint, tarragon, and morning glory. I want to train the morning glory up the column and along the beam of the balcony. I also have pots of mixed herbs (sage, oregano, thyme, rosemary, and parsley) and a pot of lovely lavender.

In this pot in the southeast corner of the balcony, I planted a sweet potato vine and the remaining marigolds, nasturtiums, sweet alyssum, and snapdragons.

Sweet alyssum is a favourite of butterflies and is great in containers. And marigolds are a happy, sunny bloom. I plan to use some marigold petals in salads over the summer.

This is the most boring flower box so far – I just put in my last nasturtium and marigold plants on the one end, and sowed herb seeds throughout the rest of the box – dill, summer savoury, and basil. I hope the squirrels leave them alone!

I’ll try and deadhead as much as possible, to keep these blooms coming back all summer!