Winter is not generally considered the time of year when you spend hours relaxing on your balcony or terrace. Instead, they are ideal as outdoor refrigerators for drinks, vegetables or other delicacies that only take up space in the kitchen. There is sadness in the balcony boxes, which are bursting with colors in summer. Yes, spring is still dreaming away a bit. Do you want to lure him out of hibernation with a colorful greeting from the balcony? Go ahead! Some species, especially perennials and small shrubs, are at their best as early as February and March.
Read here what you should consider when planting on your balcony in the cold season and what gadgets you need in addition to your green thumb.
February is not only the driest in this country, but also one of the coldest in the annual calendar, with an average daily temperature of just over three degrees Celsius. This is important if you are thinking about stocking the balcony boxes now and delighting the neighbors or walkers with the first splashes of color of the year. The vast majority of popular balcony plants react sensitively to frost. But there are exceptions, such as the snow rose or Christmas rose, which is often referred to as the queen of winter. The white to pink or even two-tone beauty is already available from specialist retailers and feels right at home in the balcony box even in frost.
Its image may be a little outdated, but the robust cyclamen is also ideal for kicking spring off the starting blocks from your balcony at home. The spring variant Cyclamen coum has white or strong pink flowers and looks brilliant in the balcony box next to the Christmas rose.
As one of the most colorful harbingers of spring, the horned violet should not be missing from any balcony box in late winter. Icy temperatures of 15 degrees below zero cannot harm the little sister of the popular pansy. The mini pansies come from the high altitudes of the Pyrenees and their flowers cover almost the entire color range. From white to yellow, red, purple and violet to almost black tones, everything will be available from February. There are hardly any limits to your imagination when planting on your balcony.
Among botanists it goes by the sonorous name Anemone nemorosa – and hobby gardeners should remember this name. Because the wood anemone also loves it cold and frosty. Depending on how mild the winter was, the white or delicate pink or blue-violet flowers stretch their heads towards the sun from mid-February. Some caution is required when planting. Like most buttercup plants, parts of the perennial contain the toxin protoanemonin. It is best to use gloves when planting on the balcony. In the event of skin contact, the relevant areas should be washed off as quickly as possible.
If you want to give bees and insects a special treat in harsh, snowy winters, you can round off your balcony planting with some heather in the cold season. The snow or winter heather survives hard frost without damage and blooms from January to April. Why? The dwarf shrub comes from the Alps and grows there at altitudes of up to 2,700 meters.
Important: As with all other balcony plants that are outdoors in snow and ice, the soil for heather should always be slightly moist. Danger! Never water on days with permanent frost. The sensitive roots could freeze.
The well-being of balcony plants depends on the condition of the soil beneath them. Basically, the fresher and higher quality the soil, the longer you can enjoy Christmas roses, violets, etc. So treat your cool harbingers of spring to a fresh “bed”, which is available here, for example. Not only does this absorb the irrigation water well, the plants are also reliably supplied with nutrients for several weeks. You don’t need any special soil for planting in winter.
The perfect soil makes life a lot easier for your plants. To ensure that it gets into the mini bed properly and that it doesn’t look like Hempels under the sofa on the balcony, the equipment should be right. In addition to a small garden claw and a shovel, a small hand brush and secateurs as well as a mini bucket for smaller plant residues are helpful gadgets for digging on the balcony. A complete and compact set for “city gardening” is available here.
Sources: “gartenjournal.net”; “NDR Guide”; “mein-schoener-garten.de”
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