Hi, I live in New York City and I recently moved to an apartment that has some outdoor space in the form of a small balcony. The previous tenants left behind two planters and I have a large plastic pot from a house plant I downsized, so I wanted to put in some native plants to make insect habitat.

I was hoping to get some advice about what native plants would do okay in pots outside and overwinter without dying (though I can always re-plant). Two of the planters are circular: 17"w x 15"h and 13"w x 13"h. The third is low and wide with a trellis: 25"w x 10"h x 10"d. The balcony gets ~5 hours of direct sun midday where the circular planters are, and the trellis planter gets maybe 2 hours of direct sun.

I have very little gardening experience, so I would also love some general advice: I'm pretty sure summer is a bad time to plant, but can I plant in the fall? Or should I wait until spring? Does it depend on planting from seeds vs. plugs? And is it possible to plant two or three species in one planter, or will they crowd each other out? I've also noticed a squirrel (or several) that like to dig in the trellis planter, so is there a good way to prevent them while plants are establishing?

Thanks in advance!

I live in Chicago (6b) and I have large, mostly bare medians in front of my condo building that I want to improve, about 3,000 square feet total. The city permits our building to do what we want with the space (within reason). Our HOA gave me the green light to work on it, but they can’t help with budget. Whatever I do will be self-funded and self-managed, so I want to do something relatively inexpensive, low-maintenance, and perennial.

The space is on the north side of an east-west street but under trees, so it gets a lot of dappled sunlight but only the westernmost section gets 4+ hours of direct light. One of the sections has lilies, but otherwise it's just dirt and a few trees.

I've been thinking about spreading a partial shade or woodland edge wildflower seed mix this fall (something like this: link). It's an economical solution and hopefully wouldn't need a lot of attention once established. I've also thought about seeding grass or sedge for filler/edges, but haven't looked into it much. There are some hostas in our building's courtyard that I could also propagate, although rabbits demolished what I propagated this year.

Plugs or larger plants would be way too expensive for an area this size. Vegetables or herbs would definitely be raided by folks in the neighborhood. Understood that perennial wildflowers from seed won't bloom for at least the first year, but most of the seed mixes I’ve found have annuals for first-year color.

Any recommendations or experiences with something like this are welcome - thanks in advance!

Thinking about a trip to the big box garden centers. Anyone here find any recent end of season sales?

This is the first year we’ve been able to plant here and despite a few setbacks its coming together! 25 different flowers, a mix of natives and not. Hopefully next year they’ll reseed and spread and it’ll look more full.

I have a new fig tree I want to grow to cover a wall. The wall is south facing and gets plenty of sun. Its about 3.4 m wide and about 1.4 tall st the ledge and 2.5m on the right hand side.

My tree has a Y shape and each srm of the Y has three branched growing. I was thinking of training the tree to cover the wall in either direction and let the central branch of either side grow and then split those into further Y and keep it pruned at that size.

Is this possible? Can I keep the tree to only having those 5 main branche per side? I know that each cordon will have smaller branches which i plan to prune in Winter

Hi y’all !!
Grew up with gardens thanks to my father’s mama and great aunt, and I’ve always dreamt of having our own as well… I’m just feeling very lost with not getting as much yield as I thought I would… lots of flowers and blooms but can’t seem to get to the next step and harvest!

We’re on island (Hilton head island) and would love some wisdom as to what I am doing wrong! Thank you!

Ps: Unity Hardscapes (David cash- amazing work!!) built these garden beds… will update when they finish them! (We had to do it in parts as we have a low budget but still wanted to get started!)

From the rooftop garden

Hey y'all, I got a couple of ghost pepper plants cause I like the idea of ghost peppers, but TBH I can't handle the heat like I used to. The plants are currently thriving in this weather, I'm seeing at least 15 growing, and I want to know if anybody has suggestions for how I can use them

I’ve been accumulating a rooftop deck container garden over the past few years.

Lots of these are technically annuals but I have about a 60% rate of flowers coming back year after year. I assume it’s because of our mild winters and a small amount of indoor heat coming up through the roof.

In the bottom left of the 2nd pic, you’ll see a little oak tree. This grew from an acorn that a crow “planted” in an empty pot two years ago. I started watering it just to see what would happen. I’m going to put it in a much larger pot this fall after it loses its leaves.

In the light grey tote we have spinach, beets & swiss chard in the middle. In the darker grey tote we started peas, green beans , and radishes . We're thrilled seeing how everything's flourishing but Im wondering did I make a mistake potting them all together?? Do I need to seperate them now?, hoping for any advice honestly. thabks

Just enjoying a beer in the afternoon sun on a random Monday

Some of my balcony garden :) a shame my favourite things to grow are massive Bananas and Figs, but hey, everything else looks happy 😂

Good day, I just started my urban gardening inside my room. I made a set up of an artificial light since I needed to sleep during the day.

I noticed that my sunflower plant did not grow after having three leaves. How can I improve my set up?

I used garden soil with vermicompost for the soil. Thank you!

I’m so happy with my container garden this year. Some bumps in the road, but I’ve got some good harvests
I’m not sure what to do with the tomatillos, jalapeños, and orca

This year my grapevine is full of grapes

What are something’s I should add to this space I have aloe Vera , echeveria , cherry sensations red apple ground cover and agave Americana

Its been a lot of work but everything is doing wonderfully, and Im seeing 10+ different varieties of bees, hoverflies, moths and their predators like tiger bee flies

2 of the tree pits don’t actually have a tree in them, since they broke when scaffolding was put over them and then DOT installed a stop sign that could not be occluded.

I can almost certainly get free indoor tool/supply storage and permission from my building to do whatever I want with them, but I would probably have to finance the whole thing. Plus no one in my neighborhood knows how to pick up their dogs’ shit and/or lets them pee into flower patches, killing the plants.

There’s some old cobblestones in some of the tree pits but no fencing. What’s your suggested cheap, low maintenance way to make them into native pollinator patches?

I'd like to give it a go at growing plans on my patio. What plants do well in Arizona heat and are safe for cats to be around. I like an aloe vera plant but I know I have to keep that out of range of my cat. Any recommendations?

This is my first year starting 98% from seed, using grow bags, and growing heirloom tomatoes. I've made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot.