To click or not to click...

It's an ethical dilemma. There are several sites on the web which I visit daily and which I'm really grateful for. They're sites like Blotanical which let me publicise my own sites, meet people and have fun. I feel I "know" the owners - we've emailed, collaborated on various projects, and as far as you can tell from a web personality, I think they're great.

But their sites aren't there just to provide a service for other people. They're also there to make money. All of them are complex, and involve the owners in a lot of work - and it's the ads on the site which pay for that work.

Because I want to say thank you, I feel I should click occasionally. After all, it's only a second of my time and if I don't, I'm just exploiting the service without giving anything in return.

But ninety nine times out of a hundred, I'm not really interested in the products I see advertised. And even the hundredth time, I know I'm not going to buy. It's just curiousity.

So whatever I do (or don't do) I feel I'm ripping someone off. The site owners if go on using the site without clicking, but the advertisers, who still have to pay for my click, if I click without real intention to buy.

My answer so far has been to look and see if something really catches my eye, and if I'm genuinely interested, even if only for information, to click. After all, who knows? Even if I don't buy now, maybe I will in the future. Or maybe I'll mention it to someone who will. Isn't that how advertising usually works?

There are other ways to "give back" of course, which don't involve clicking on ads. Like promoting the sites on mine, which I'll always willingly do. But I'm still uneasy.

And you? What do you do?

The Balcony Garden Year - February

There are times when I think that anyone in Austin Texas should be forbidden to have a blog. Like today, when I go into the blog for Homewood Heights Community Garden and find that they're all out there gardening in sleeveless T-shirts. (The air turns green with envy.) Milan and Austin are supposed to have the same hardiness zone rating for heavens sake, yet I was out there today in my Norwegian fisherman's sweater and padded boots ...

However, even if temperatures aren't quite in the Austin league, the last two weeks of February do mark the official start of the Balcony Garden year. Most of the work to be done is only preparatory, but there are one or two things that count as real gardening. So here goes with a list. If you're a balcony gardener, what should you be doing in February?

It does depend where you are of course. We're having daytime temperatures of about 11°C now, and the plants are starting to show signs of coming back into growth. if you're not that far on, then you may have to wait a few more weeks before getting on with some of the things here.

1. If you have perennials or biennials or bulbs coming through, remember that higher temperatures will mean you need to start watering more often. Check at least once a week - more often if it's sunny. But don't overwater, and remember that the top layer may have dried out while the soil below is still moist. Check first.

2. Plan. What are you going to grow, what combinations are you going to have, and what will you need to do month by month? If you have such restricted space that you can do little else but buy in plants from the local garden centre, then you may prefer to let this develop month by month as things catch your eye. But if you have a little extra space (I have three balconies, each 10m x1m) and want to grow from seed, now's the time to be thinking about it.

2. Pop out to the nearest garden centre and pick up some primulas. No balcony should be without them at this time of the year. Whether you go for classic yellow, a bi-coloured display or just a riotous mixture of all the colours you can get your hands on, they'll cheer you up and remind you that spring is on the way while you do ...

3. ... the boring stuff. Yes, I know you don't want to, but if you don't give the balcony a good spring clean now, you won't be able to. Wash down the railings before you put the containers back up and have plants trailing all over the place. Sweep and wash down the balcony floor before it's covered in heavy pots. And then empty all the old soil out of the containers and give them a good wash too. With disinfectant, to get rid of any fungus or virus infections left over from last year. When you've done all that, you can give yourself a pat on the back and make a cup of tea. Now the fun stuff starts - you can start thinking about your plants.

4. If you're in a zone where temperatures are high enough that there's no longer any risk of frost on the balcony itself, you should be able to take off the fleece from plants which have overwintered, and maybe even move them away from the walls of the house or the more sheltered parts of the balcony. But be careful - if you're not sure the weather will co-operate, then leave them a bit longer. If you do move them out, check them for damage, cut off any dead bits, and clear the containers of dead leaves. Then scrape away as much of the old soil as you can without disturbing the roots and replace with new.


5. Now is the time to prune certain shrubs, like plumbago, which flower off the new growth of the year. Last year I didn't get round to mine and this, together with the fact that I'd put it in a position where it got only limited sun, meant I got a very poor showing of flowers. This year, I've cut it back hard, pruning each stem of last year's growth back to about two leaf buds from the main branch. And I've moved it back on to the balcony railings, where it gets more sun and has always done well. Don't forget though, that some shrubs - like my philadelphus - flower off the previous years growth. Prune them now and you'll have no flowers at all.

6. A few things can already be sown now - some vegetables and flowers which grow from bulbs, corms or tubers can be planted outdoors, while seeds can be started indoors. I'm trying Jerusalem artichokes up the trellis in front of the bedroom this year, and they went in last week, and so did my garlic. And I continued planting my summer bulbs, putting in some liatris and several sorts of allium. Plus some corms which for now are being referred to as Mysterius Whatthehellaretheseus. I have a clear memory of taking them out of their pots last autumn, putting them away and thinking Oh, I'll remember what those are. Yeah yeah. In the house, I've got a mix of herbs, flowers and veg seeds sitting by the bed and waiting to germinate - if they're not too intimidated by my husband's frequent laments of Do those really have to be there?

And that's about it for this month. But there's only a week to go till March - and then the fun really starts.

Gardeners' Bloom Day - February

I was hoping they'd make it for today. I've been watching them for a month now, at first hardly visible amongst the leaves, then gradually elongating and holding up little swan-like heads. Timidly starting to unfurl.

But we're shy. And then, it's been so cold ...

Too cold. I've lost a lot this winter. Plants which have made it through other winters have blackened and died ...

But it's better now. The sun is shining and we can feel its warmth. Perhaps we will come out and open up ...

There's still a chill wind though, and the nights are cold. Careful.

We will be. But it's been so long ... It's time, it must be time.

And yes, today for the first time it did almost seem as if spring was in the air. The temperature on the balcony at lunchtime was a comfortable 11°C (52°F) even if it did drop considerably as the sun passed over and left us in the shade. But it wasn't so much the temperature as the quality of the light - or was it the smell in the air? I don't know. In any case, it didn't feel like winter any more.

Dangerous words. Most of Italy is still grappling with snow, and there's plenty of time for it to come back here. Am I just imagining the spring? Is it just wishful thinking?

My little cyclamen don't think so, and neither do the tulip and daffodil bulbs which are starting to push through. Or the lily bulbs. Or the agapanthus. Everything is starting to put out shoots, or to look just that bit greener, as if they're slowly coming out of a long, long sleep.

So no, I don't have much to show you for Gardeners' Bloom Day this month. But I will have soon. It's time to get ready ...

Vegetables need love too ...

Don't underestimate them ...

Peas sidle up, wanting to hug ...

Carrots need to cuddle ...


Parsnips get passionate ...

Tomatoes hold hands ...

Fiddlehead fern gets the message across ...


And so do onions, reminding you that love can sometimes make you cry ...

And freeze your heart ...


But sooner or later you'll warm it up again.

Happy Valentines Day!

Acknowledgements

With many, many thanks to the people who made these photos available under Creative Commons Licence on flickr :

wishymom - peas
Chris Campbell - carrots
beatlequeen - parsnips
Zep10 - tomatoes
libraryman - fiddlehead fern
Estherase - onions
waiti - spinach
kramerhawks - celery

And the potato? We ate it last week ....

The only herb you'll ever need ...

About ten years ago, browsing around a German supermarket, I came across a packet of herbs with the name Bohnenkraut. Well, that translates as "bean herb" and as I cook with beans a lot, I thought I'd give it a go.

It was wonderful. Following the suggestions on the packet, I added it to anything which contained tomatoes, beans, lentils ... and soon I was hooked. But what was it exactly?

It tasted a bit, but not quite, like oregano - though I preferred it by far. Could it be a blend of various herbs? A bit like the French Herbes de Provence? I decided it must be.

I couldn't find anything like it anywhere else. I tried in Britain, in Italy - but nowhere had a German blend of herbs with anything like the name bean herb.

And so, for about ten years I just stocked up every time I went there, bringing home enough packets to last me till I went again or someone visited and could bring them out. And added it to just about everything. Roast chicken, beef stew ... I don't think two days go by when we don't have Bohnenkraut in something. I confess - I'm an addict. The recipes say oregano? basil? sage? Forget it - stick in some Bohnenkraut.

And then, while I was there this Christmas, I went to the local garden centre to buy some seeds and found .... Bohnenkraut. So it wasn't a blend after all. But then what the heck was it?

I'll cut a long and Google-dominated story short. It's savory.

Now that's a herb I'd heard of, but if you'd asked me if I'd ever tried it, I'd have said no.

Try looking for recipes with savory on the web. You will find them, but they're few and far between. Why is it so ignored? If the web is to be believed it's used a lot in Canada,and also in Bulgaria and Romania, but here in Southern Europe is largely unknown - odd because apparently it grows here. I did find the Italian name, Santoreggia, and then remembered having seen it in a little greengrocer's which specialises in heirloom fruit and veg, but apart from that I've never heard of it being used.

Needless to say, when I came home after my trip to the garden centre, there was a packet of savory seeds tucked firmly into my bag. I've bought summer savory (Satureja hortensis),an annual which is apparently milder in flavour than the perennial winter savory (Satureja montana). I've no idea which one my dried herbs are - I'll find out when it's big enough to harvest.

If you can find it, I recommend strongly that you try it. If you grow from seed, it will germinate at 18-20°C (65-70F), so start it off indoors or in the greenhouse any time from now on. And then it likes the sun.

Apart from the fact that it tastes wonderful, it also acts against the anti-social effects that can often come from eating food like beans - all these years of wondering why the beans I cooked didn't cause the problems they were supposed to ...

And (or but, depending on how you look at it), according to the ancient Romans, it's an aphrodisiac. Now, I've been feeding it to my husband for the last ten years and I have to say.... But no, perhaps not. I'll leave you to try it. You can find out for yourselves.

A sad tale - but a happy ending

This is a tale not for the faint-hearted. A sad tale of cruelty and neglect which will probably get me drummed out of the ranks of the garden blogging community. If you're liable to get upset, it might be best not to read on ...

I have an office. And in my office there was an enormous Scindapsus (or Pothos, or Epiphremnum, or Raphidophora - see here for why this plant has more aliases than most of the criminals listed by Interpol). A lovely plant, which trailed down about 3ft from the top of a bookcase in the office all winter, full of glossy green and yellow variegated leaves. Then in the summer months, I'd cut it back and leave it to grow back trailing over the balcony - scindapsus loves the indirect light, the heat and humidity which the balcony gets.

Scindapsus loves the light. So what do I do to it? I leave it in a completely dark room for a week.

I didn't mean to be cruel, honestly. It was just bad planning. I don't work in the office every day, but when I'm not there I always go in the morning to open the shutters and let the light in, and then go back at night to close up. And then suddenly I couldn't get there for a week.

When I did get back, the signs of neglect were evident. Gone was my glossy, bushy plant. The leaves were yellowing and starting to fall, and were full of the tell-tale brown patches which scindapsus is prone to when it's ill-treated.

Full of guilt and remorse, I brought it home for some tender loving care. Comments from the rest of the family were not encouraging : It's dead .... Throw it away.... You're not going to leave that thing there are you... What do you want another one for - you've already got a houseful.

You can see from the photo that it lost most of the leaves, but after a month of intensive light therapy by the window, the colour has come back and there are signs that it's picking up again. Some fairly hard pruning this spring (there is nothing uglier than a "leggy" scindapsus) and it should be back to normal by the autumn. Phew. Here it is today sitting on what used to be the hamster's table with four other friends.

Because, as my husband pointed out, it wasn't the only one I had. Whenever I cut it back, I can never resist replanting the stems. And it's such an easy plant to grow that they come up every time. Just stick them in some potting compost, like these which went in last year ...

... or grow them in water. Pop them into a flower vase, top the water up once a week and forget about them. They'll put out roots and be perfectly happy.


I usually let my scindapsus trail. That way it looks good on the balcony in the summer, and obscures some boring files from view in the winter. In the garden centres you usually find them trained up mossy poles - I find this a drag as they grow so quickly that you're always trimming and they quickly start to look untidy. I prefer the natural chaos of the cascade effect.

Scindapsus comes from S. East Asia where it grows among the trees in the tropical rainforest - hence it's liking for heat and humidity. Ideally you should keep them at between 18°C (65°F)and 29°C (85°F). Mine tend to stay out until about October, when temperatures may be down to about 7-10°C (45-50°F), but then it's time to bring it in. Mist regularly to provide humidity.

But if it's fussy about temperature, it's very easy-going when it comes to soil and fertiliser. It grows happily in the ordinary potting compost I get from the supermarket, and doesn't seem to care whether I fertilise or not. It gets fertiliser when I'm watering all the plants together and there's some in the watering can - but I've also let it go without for long periods with no apparent ill-effects. It's fairly happy-go-lucky about watering too - most sources advise you to water moderately and let it dry out between waterings, especially in winter. But it's been "drowned" by my plant sitters occasionally, and has always bounced back.

It's a very, very easy houseplant to grow and to look after. And also good to have around the house as it absorbs indoor pollutants such as formaldehyde (which may be released from new furniture, carpeting and other products), and benzene (plastics, detergents, synthetic fibers and more). Scindapsus is poisonous if eaten however - don't add it to your salads and keep it away from kids and pets like rabbits (or hamsters), which might be tempted to have a nibble.

Oh - and though I've never tried, they say that by controlling the light conditions, you can also control the colour. In shade, green will predominate; give it more sun and the yellow variegation will be stronger. Most sources say to avoid direct sunlight - but mine gets it for about two hours a day all summer, and there are no problems.

Just don't leave it in the dark.

It's happening again ...

January. It's the time of year when I get itchy. Yes, I know it's too early. It's -4°C out there for goodness sake. But there they all are, sitting in their little paper packets saying Put us in, oh please put us in.

Rubbish. We're not saying anything of the sort. We're not ready. It's too cold and too dark. We won't do anything. Wait till March ...

I rake the blogs for posts about winter sowing. Ellen of How I Love to Garden is encouraging and points me to a couple of other good websites. But are the seeds I've got suitable?

I pore over the instructions - at some length and with a dictionary, because they're in German, fruit of a trip to the local garden centre while I was in Aachen over Christmas. It was January 2nd and it had snowed hard overnight. I was one of two customers in the whole place, and the other one was buying houseplants. The staff clearly thought I was stark raving mad to have turned out that particular day to buy a summer's worth of seeds.

April, sow direct. No good. March, under glass. March, under glass. Hmm, that's promising. As we're in Italy, maybe I could get away with it now. It's warmer here. ..

I grab one of my Italian gardening books and check the sowing times. March, under glass. Rats.

And then things start to look up. Cowslips (which incidentally in German have the wonderful name of Keys of Heaven) Sow in the winter months. Rucola, all year round. OK, now you're talking. Surfinia, Ivy-leaved Pelargoniums, Heliotrope : In the house or greenhouse 18°-22°, January to March. Yes! That's what I've been looking for ...

In the house or greenhouse. Heated greenhouse obviously. Don't have one of those on the balcony - it'll have to be the house. Time to clear the books off my bedside trolley table again, and push it up to the window. Ignore those Oh not again looks from the rest of the family as what they believed to be their home is turned into a nursery. They'll thank me later when the balcony's looking wonderful and I don't have to spend money on garden centre plants.

So we're off once more. Despite the fact that it's the coldest month of the year and light evenings are still a far-off dream, it's time to start. Spring may not quite be just round the corner, but it's coming. I promise.

Death of a Tree

It started with the sound of a chainsaw. Tuesday is a day when I don't have to work early, but a high, whiny buzz coming from the front garden woke me at 8am. What was going on? Were they lopping the trees in the garden? They come and do it about every three years, but it shouldn't have been this year.

I peer over the balcony wrapped against the -3° temperature in an old dressing gown inherited from my mother - I am too ashamed to say how long ago. And looking undoubtedly like the mad woman of Milan. And see two men attacking the laurel tree in front of the appartment. Whaaat? It's perfectly healthy, and at only about 15 ft created no problems. So why?

I wake up husband and pounce - he's one of the tenant representatives for the condominium and is supposed to know what's going on. Why are they killing my tree?

One groggy eye opens and says (I've deleted the expletives) I've been in bed with the 'flu for a week, don't know and the way I'm feeling don't care, go ask the caretaker.

But first I grab my camera to record the crime. And go to the end of the balcony where I have a clearer view. And see the tree is down ...

Not cut down. Fallen down. Brought down by the weight of the snow heaped on the broad, flat leaves. Remember the last post and the photo of the tree covered in snow and forming a white hump outside the balcony? That was the laurel.

But the weight was too much. And the tree had simply toppled over, uprooting itself. I hadn't noticed the first time I looked, because the view from that end of the balcony is obscured by the hedge. And the tree had fallen against a lamp-post, propping itself up as if nothing was the matter.

The men worked for about half an hour. At the end, they loaded up the branches on a lorry and left. My lovely laurel is gone. Killed by the snow.

Heat zones and hardiness zones

This was the week that temperatures on the balcony dropped to -3°C (26°F) and we had 40 cms (about 16 inches) of snow within 36 hours. That's more than I've seen in Milan for about 20 years - and the first time I've ever seen snow heaped up on the balcony. It is however well within the limits of our hardiness zone.

It seems that every US gardener knows what hardiness zone they're in. Yet the idea is much less common in Europe. It is possible to find out though, and backyardgardener.com links to maps showing not only the US, but also Europe ( this one from gardenweb.com is particularly good - click on the different countries to get an enlarged view of wherever you are in Europe, Australia, China and the States.

Knowing your hardiness zone isn't always much help though. First of all, because the categories seem to me to be extremely wide. We're in zone 8, which means that temperatures might go as low as -12°C. Well, yes I suppose they might. But they almost never do. If we have a week below freezing with a couple of days at -5 or -6, that's an exceptionally cold winter. Most years we never see temperatures drop far below freezing at all. Even this week we've mostly been around 0-2°.

One reason for that however is that we're in the middle of a city - where temperatures are always 2-3°C higher than the surrounding countryside. And that's another problem with hardiness zones - you need to take into account the individual factors of your garden : how exposed is it? If you're south facing, if you have nice sheltering walls, or if like me you garden on a balcony that receives warmth from the house, the official temperatures and those which your plants experience may be quite different. I've said before that I can get so-called annuals like petunias to survive the winter on the balcony just by covering them and placing them against the walls of the house. The conditions in the micro-climate of your own garden may be quite different from the "official" conditions of your zone.

However, the other problem is that hardiness zones only take into consideration the low, winter temperatures. I've said we're in zone 8 here - but so is much of Britain, and the type of plants that grow well here and in Britain are often quite different. We may have similar winter conditions, but the summer heat is another story.

In the US, it's also possible to find out your heat zone. The zones are based on how many days the temperature rises above 30°C / 86°F, and you can see how the zones are labelled at the site of the American Horticultural Society. But I can find nothing for any other part of the world. And as I lose far more plants to heat than cold, I'd like to know.

But for now, we're still coping with the snow.

Another Year Over ....

OK, so I´ve missed another deadline. 2008 was supposed to end with a review of the year posted on December 31st. And here we are, twelve hours into 2009 and I´m only just getting around to it. And one of my New Year resolutions is to try and manage my time better ...

The year started as it finished, with us here in Germany. While we were here last year, I noticed two large crassula ovata in flower, and the post I wrote on them turned out to be my most popular post ever - goodness knows why. But the search engines seem to like it and it still tops my list of most visited pages. This year they´re still there, but there´s no sign of flowers. Could it be a plant which only flowers occasionally, I wonder. Back home my own still shows no sign of blooms at all.

My own favourite January post though was the one I wrote On the naming of plants ... - something that sems to get less logical the more they try and clean it up.

In February my primula were in full flower and I was itching to get on with seed sowing. While I waited though, I asked What Kind of a Garden Blogger are you? - bifurcated, a butterfly, a scribbler or ...??

March was a good month both for gardening and blogging. The tulips were out, and the primula continued to surprise - as I wrote in The Curious Incident of the Primrose that Wanted to be a Polyanthus. I also posted, a bit late, on Where in the world is the Balcony Garden? for Jodi at Bloomingwriter´s Garden Blogger´s Geography Project describing living and gardening in Milan.

In April I wrote about my little Hamster Helper : The Only Garden Tool You´ll Ever Need. Benji sadly died later in the year - she was by that time an old lady, but refused to accept that she could no longer climb and jump around as she used to. And fell and broke her back. We miss her.

Milan was featured again in April in the GBD post where I talked about how every balcony in the city seems to turn yellow when the sedum blooms. Even people who have no other plants on their balconies seem to have sedum - and I can´t claim to be an exception. I also talked about how many plants which are usually sold as annuals in fact are far hardier than they seem, and do well as perennials - something I´ve picked up on again recently.

In May the balcony was at its best. It was also the month when I had a weekend in Barcelona, where I admired the way Gaudi´s architecture blended so well with the naturalfeatures of the Park Guell. It was also the month I wrote about the Wollemi Pine, one of the Earth´s oldest living plants. It´s been around for 200 million years, but the living version was only recently discovered in Australia.

June saw me spending quite a lot of time in a local park, where I not only saw the lavender in bloom but also came across some dinosaur eggs. But perhaps the most interesting post was An Interview with Stuart of Blotanical, where he talked about setting up the site and his plans for the future.



July saw the end of the great Bill and Ben experiment, with the sad demise of Bill. And we were looking at Milan again with the post Guerilla Gardening in Milan.

In August we were on holiday at the sea. But apart from a few posts from there, I also wrote about Ten Reasons Why I Wouldn´t Be Without My Scissors And for the umpteenth time I wrote about the plants I´d lost to red spider mite. They hit late this year due to the cold, rainy spring, but made up for it with a vengeance when they did finally arrive.

September saw another interview - this time with Carol of May Dreams Gardens.

And I also inadvertently stirred up a hornet´s nest with the post Balcony Gardening - or Just Exterior Decorating. It gave me a chance though to write a follow up post which I´d been thinking about for a while : Form and Colour, Colour and Form


October had the Virginia Creeper on the canal showing off its glorious colours ...



But apart from that the autumn was a bit miserable, leaving me overworked, burnt out and in November with a bad back that had me writing about how not to shift containers around on the balcony.

I perked up a bit in December though, with the closest I think I´ll ever get to a rant about the way the EU has watered down its plans to combat CO2 emissions and therefore climate change. And of course there was the usual Christmas Quiz to finish the year.



And there goes 2008. What will 2009 bring? Who knows. But I do have plans. I never make New Year resolutions, but this year I have set some goals - some of them to do with the blog. So watch this space. I´ll be back soon.

But till then, to all of you ..

May 2009 see your seeds germinate, the flowers bloom copiously and your vegetable garden make you self sufficient. May the butterflies come to sip the nectar but lay their eggs elsewhere, and may the red spider mite just go away. A long, long way away.




Happy New Year !