Container Gardening: Balconies and Courtyards

It's such a thrill to see everything coming to life.

The peach blossoms, the fresh green buds on plants and trees. The new shoots on my plants reaffirms my sanity. I'm sure my neighbours must have viewed my behaviour as bizarre when they peeked through their windows and saw me watering masses of empty pots full of nothing but dirt for several weeks. Until the green shoots appeared suddenly enmasse.

On House Hunting

I recently posted about my friend feeling tired all the time and to be honest, I was feeling along that vein until I started forcing myself to get active with everything on my list of things to do. I spent one recent Saturday going to eight open houses. My mind was saturated with ideas and critiques on how to renovate, what needed to be renovated, what the houses should sell for given their location and conditions. I'm hoping to buy one next year so the pressure is on to gauge the market and the right price to offer vendors.

I built a frame for a canvas painting that had sat on the floor gathering dust for 8 months and I also built bedside tables from an IKEA flatpack. Can't even remember the last time I used my hammer and screwdrivers so frequently to build things. It's not exactly a feminine type of past time!


On Container Gardening

The container garden that I've been pottering on is coming along beautifully. All bulbs and seeds have been planted, my Aloe and her thirteen pups have been repotted. That was a monumental effort. I have around forty potted plants now with several in huge ceramic glazed pots.

Feeling inspired, objects and mishmash lying around the house will soon be turned into pieces of decorative art or ornaments soon. Here's some gorgeous container gardening inspiration for those of you who love to garden but have only a small balcony or courtyard:

From Martha Stewart's site:

Since when did I start developing a fondness for succulents? *Sigh* I can't help but want to buy more and more succulents and I don't even know how or when I started liking those odd, spiky fat, leafy plants.














Stone art inspiration for those with oodles of beach and rock stones lying around in jars with nothing better to do with them:

Along the lines of canvas art inspiration - you don't have to just use photos or buy generic printed stuff from the shops. You can create beautiful one off pieces from fabric or rags that you have lying around the place. Check out this gorgeous canvas bandana art from Apartment Therapy:

Or if you're like me and you have heaps of craft equipment, you can use your punches to create templates which you can use for spray painting, acrylics, oils or whatever takes your fancy. Saw this gorgeous placemat with sakura petals painted on: