Hap-pea birthday to the blog!!!

Today has been the blogs 1 year birthday! Yay! Congrats little blog! It's been a really fun adventure so far. Blogging about the balcony inspires me to make it even better and more beautiful and it also gives me an opportunity to actually use all those photos that I take. LOL I also look forward very much to look back on last summer and reading the old entries, month for month to compare with this year.

May 2009 (click here!)
This year I'm a little bit earlier with some things (I've planted thing a couple of days earlier this year and I also bought the petunias earlier than last year for instance) and I'm a bit late with other things, like sowing the peas.

It's been a trickier to sow things indoors this spring since the "itty bitty monster kitty" moved in her last fall and turned the life upside-down fore me, the older cats and my poor, poor plants (she didn't just turn the plants' lives upside-down, she loves to turn the actual plants upside-down as well. LOL)

Anyway, tonight I've sown some pre-sprouted peas directly in the flower boxes. The dirt might still a bit too cold for them so I'm pre-sprouting another batch (in wet paper) to sow later or indoors if needed.



Sprouted peas, waiting to fulfill this destiny


To summon this birthday entry up I'm looking forward to yet another summer with my beloved balcony and yet another summer with my blog. I this will be a really good year! (If I could wish for one thing though it would be a little bit more comments and interactions with the readers in the blog and maybe some other balcony blogs to follow myself.)

Sooooo many colors!

I must admit it, the vivid mix of colors have made me a little bit nervous. Have I taken it too far? Will it look too messy? Pale pinks petunias combined with the pale blue trailing lobelias WOULD be more my style. It's not that I don't like the colors, of course I do, I've bought them myself, it's the amount of them that had me worried.

But after enjoying a cup of tea on the balcony today and finally taking in the entire look I've decided that I like things the way they are. It makes me happy! And besides, it's the just balcony, should I grow tired of all the colors I can just go back to more subtle pastels next summer.



This is one of the colors I've worried about the most. It's a little
bit too red for my taste (it looked more pinkish when I bought it)



This one I love though



And this one as well, obviously



This color is a lot darker IRL, more like the bud you can see to the left



And this is probably the most unique of the colors



This one is hard to take photos of, it's bluer and darker IRL. Classic Petunia purple



And this is a bit warmer, more coral IRL



Me likes! Nothing worrying about white. LOL



Ooops, badly over exposed It's darker IRL



This is a better photo of the same flower


The 10th Petunia (to the right in the box above) is a wonderful, pale lavender plant but it doesn't have any flowers right now.



Tea on the balcony



My view from the chair





It's a rare treat to be able to drink tea on the balcony in the middle of the day. When it's sunny it's usually WAY too hot to stay more than a few minutes once the sun has reached around the house (the balcony is facing west and gets loads of sun) And what's worse, since there's a pizza place downstairs the customers and the owners love to smoke below my balcony (you're not allowed to smoke inside restaurants and public places in Sweden) and because of my asthma that always forces me indoors. Arrrghhhhh!!!!!

Today was a lovely day though, the temperature was just right and the smokers left me alone for a long time. After a while the sun disappeared behind dark clouds though and shortly I've I'd went back in it started to hail

Big Planting Day

Yesterday was what I use to call "The Big Planting Day" when I planted the flower boxes.

I planted:

• Runner Beans (Rosenbönor)
  
• Morning Glory (Blomman för dagen)
  
• Petunias (Petunior)
  
• Trailing Lobelias (Hänglobelior)
  
• Sweet Alison (Strandkrassing)

(The later not in the flower boxes though)



The "corner" flower box



The box to the right of the table



The one closest to my chair



The last Petunia and the lovely honey scented Sweet Alison (Strandkrassing)



Oh nooo, my pretty floor is dirty!!!! (Don't worry, I've cleaned it up by now. LOL
I just needed to wait for the dirt to dry first to avoid creating a worse mess)



The corner

Little old lady flowers

Look what I bought yesterday!!! Dirt! Now I can plant more flowers again.



I also bought some more plants - OF COURSE!!! LOL



Petunias and Sweet Alison (Strandkrassing)



Even more Petunias!!!


Petunias???!!! Again???!!! To quote what I wrote last year on this subject:

I guess turning 40 really WAS the end of my fun, imaginative young self. Now I've turned old and boring! I've gotten Petunias!!! LMAO I've always thought that Petunias were for little old ladies and boring people with no imagination and now I'm one myself, a boring, little, old lady with no imagination but with four petunias instead. LOL I mostly blame my upstairs neighbor because every summer he's got the most stunning hanging Petunia baskets (and it's even just the basic bluish purple but they're still stunning). I also kind of blame my former mother-in-law's fantastic petunias (on the other hand she WAS a boring, old lady with no imagination so that's maybe the origin if my prejudices against the poor little flowers. LOL) But I also blame the "plant breeders" that's over the year created petunias in the most stunning colors and the cutest sizes. It's just not FAIR to wear down people's Petunia resistance by making the newer Petunias absolutely irresistible! And finally I blame my garden center that happened to have those irresistible Petunias right at the time when I came to buy some lobelias to mix in with the vegetables in my flower boxes. See, it's not MY fault at all!!!! *innocent* I mean I can't HELP that I've just bought 4 different Petunias and that I happen to LOVE them. It's everyone else's fault!!! LOL I'm not old and boring at all, I'm NOT! LOL

Since I'm a year older now I of course had to buy even MORE petunias this year (10 of them instead of four *blushes*) Well, what can I say, I loved the ones I had last year and they had some really nice colors at the garden center (Eeek! I even fell for one of those bluish purple ones this year. I'm sooo old! LOL) I wish they had more of the different pale pink ones I had last year though.



The one to the left is the same color as one I had last year



And I found this to be a really interesting color


Since I chose such a huge mix of petunia colors this year I decided to tie the colors together with just pale blue Trailing Lobelias (Hänglobelior) instead of using mixed colors. (They were my favorites last summer) I'm already MUCH more color crazy than I use to be and I feel that I need a bit of calmness as well in the color palette.



A curious visitor



Mommy's little sweetheart!!! (she's meowing here)



The "pink" tulip



The second tulip bud. I wonder if it will open?



My Forget-me-nots (Förgätmigejer)





The photo above is a sample of the "guerilla gardening" I told you about earlier. The photo si taken from my bedroom window (which is a little bit more difficult than my old camera can cope with) . Isn't it a lovely flowerbed? It's "owned" by my balcony neighbor (the lady on the other side of the wall) and she keeps increasing it bigger every year.

Happy Birthday to me!!!

Yesterday was my birthday and I got some plants for the balcony (amongst other things) and since my mom was here she also helped me with some of the planting. Not the beans though since we ran out of soil.



I got a wonderful white rose (and a pot for it as well)



Isn't it beautiful?



I also got some Morning Glory (Blomman för dagen) plants



The beans really need to be replanted soon



The tomatoes are liking their new "home though"
(the poor pansies got quite messed up by the thunder storm)



This is how the corner looks now



And just because...
Some less overexposed wilds strawberry (smultron) flowers. LOL


It's kind of fun, when we were done I started to feel like the balcony was staring to get back to its lush self again. Now it almost looked like it did last summer (minus the bean walls). Then later yesterday I happened to look at a post from September last year and I had to take back everything I'd said before. Just look at the photos of the corner!!! There's a long way to go before the balcony looks like it did last year, don't you think? LOL On the other hand it IS just May and still spring so that's only natural.

Thunder!!!!!

Today we've had the first thunderstorm of the year. It was really intense (especially the rain) but luckily it was very short as well.

When the rain and thunder had passed it became really windy and cold. Originally I had planned to plant the beans today but considering the weather I'm glad they stayed on the floor since they're usually a bit sensitive to heavy rain and heavy winds when re-planted. But maybe tomorrow if the weather and my heath permits it?



Heavy, heavy rain! The road outside looked like river and I got soaking wet
while taking this photo for you. (The roof just wasn't enough protection)


It was quite fascinating to see the edge of the clouds and
the sunny sky behind it when the thunderstorm was passing.



The rain knocked over the poor beans a bit…



...before I could move them in to safety



I love photos water drops of flowers









The pansies on the windowsill remained dry though






Look! Wild strawberry flowers! I know, over exposed and blurry,
but I just wanted to get inside to dry up.



Close up of the primula