Greetings From The Balcony Grove

Yuan and I are out here and I'm taking a little break from working on The Book to write a post. I love the energy in my balcony grove this year!

elm and ivies

Yep, it's now gone from balcony garden > balcony forest > balcony grove. If all the babies survive and the seeds sprout that I stratified out here over the winter, I'll have six different ogham plants out here! :D

ivies and just-planted marigold seeds

That would be: elm, ivy, apple, maple, hawthorn, and oak. Presuming the best (though I really worry about maple).

maple

Last year, I had to move all the plants off the balcony for like a week because maintenance sprayed the wasp nest I had discovered. I put them in the courtyard - literally just the other side of my apartment. The front door instead of the back. Thirty feet away or so.

They got fried pretty hard in the sun and some were eaten by bugs!

Maple was one of the fried ones, and she looked by the end of summer to not have made it. But I have continued to water and care for her, on the chance that her roots are okay and she makes a comeback this year. Fingers crossed!

apple, oak, oak, hawthorn

I need to get my hands on some holly next, I think. :D

And yes, Yuan's cat grass flat has been planted as well:

Most of these images are from several days ago. That glass you see in the photo in front of Yuan's Salad was a big heavy tabletop I have had out here for years, with the intention of painting it to look like stained glass someday. I finally was going to do it - I laid it flat, and sketched out my design with China marker. Then I left it alone for a couple of weeks. One evening, the kitties and I were inside and I heard this loud CRACK! I went out to investigate and found this:

Yeah, it spontaneously broke in a wave like that into three pieces. A friend on FB said I should not have stored glass flat, but ...it's a tabletop. That's how it's SUPPOSED to have lived, on top of a table, permanently. So I had to gather the pieces and throw it out, which was difficult because did I mention it was heavy af and big and awkward and BROKEN GLASS? Yeah, that was an effort to get it onto my little red wagon and down to the dumpster. It got stuck in the hallway and I was pulling it through the apartment, angling it up with one hand and pulling the wagon with the other.

But I made it. The two smaller pieces I got in the dumpster. The biggest one there was no way I was going to be able to heave up and over, so I propped it up against the dumpster and hoped that was okay. Hopefully the garbage workers are stronger than I am. I heard a suspiciously-like-a-big-piece-of-glass sound going in the trash truck this morning, so I think they got it. :)

Anyway, that's it from here in the grove. I'm listening to baby birds in the trees in the parking lot next to me and I'm not sure where exactly they are, but they sound hungry. They want worms, mama!

Have a great day, Steem fam! And happy arbor day! :)

My Ko-fi:

My Zazzle Shop: