More on plants - saving an invested plant

I have loads of pests on my balcony, slugs, thrips, aphids and what not. I'm doing my utter best to get healthy plants, but as a city gardener, my options are limited. I can't always plant different species next to each other to help each other. So I thought I'd share some of my tips and tricks and experiments. This time: an experiment.

My once beautiful rosemary wasn't looking so beautiful anymore... It's green leaves had developed yellow spots as you can see. Not very edible looking... On closer investigation I found thrips! These are tiny flying bugs, who live on sucking your plant empty. They can be hard to spot, but I managed to photograph an adult, see below. I think the larvae live on the underside of the leaves and the adult on both sides. 

Since yellow leaves won't turn green again, I made up the next plan: I would try to grow new plants from cuttings. This I have done before, with 50% success (1 cutting died, the other one is growing into a beautiful plant!). So I cut all the healthy looking tops, removed the lower leaves and stuck them in water. I checked every cutting at least two times in case there were any thrips left on them. 

With a bit of luck and time the stems will grow tiny little roots. It took quite a lot of time the first time, but now it's summer, so I expect quicker growth. When tiny roots appear I stick them in the ground and hope for the best. It is important to refresh the water at least twice a week. Also make sure none of the leaves are in the water, just the stems. 

As for the rest of the plant: I cut it down! All the way to the ground. I kept the stump in the ground, as an extra chance for the plant to regrow. I put the cuttings in a plastic bag, so hopefully the thrips didn't fly to my other plants. I keep checking them a lot and squeezing any of those buggers when I see them. 

I'll keep you updated on any growth or death

p.s. can you see my nailpolish matching my balcony floor?!

City gardening - winter

I'm declaring it's spring in Amsterdam! We had a very sunny day yesterday and the day before, so it was time to look outside my kitchen door and fix the balcony. I thought it would be fun to do a series during the year, to compare my plants, plans and ideas about the balcony. Now it's all gray and empty, so you can see in the pictures below. I have loads of plans and am going to the garden centre this friday with my dad, so I needed to formalize my ideas. 

Since I just got a Wacom Bamboo tablet for my birthday from my boy (what!! I'm still amazed!!) I figured I could draw my ideas. Mind you, I can't draw, not in real life and certainly not on a tablet I'm just learning to use. But I like the results!

Herbs:
1: thyme, last years died, but I've already planted new ones
2: sage, last years died also, but I hope it'll regrow
3: rosemary, I have a lovely plant left over from last year
4: chives, is regrowing from last years mess
5: parsley
6: basil

Other herbs I'm growing can be seen here. I don't know yet where I will put them. I'm probably going to add more hanging baskets on the railing.

Flowers:
7: morning glory and black-eyed Susan
8: clematis, I only have one now, thinking about adding another for some more flowers
9: beans! I'm thinking about using chicken wire as a support to grow them on

Around this black obstacle in the middle of the balcony I want to grow some more black-eyed Susans. With chicken wire I'm going to create a form on which the Susan can climb. 

So here is how it's looking now. Almost no plants, all empty and gray, except for the blue berry plant I found at my supermarket. I'm very excited about this plant, I hope it will survive and give me blue berries from next year on!

This weekend I'm probably going to paint the concrete. We bought paint for it last year, but of course found no time to paint. I think this is the right time, when there aren't too many plants.

Also; I'm a very lucky girl, blessed with a little platform outside our attic rooms. Last year I build two planters there so I could grow more vegetables. I will post about my plans there soon (think tomatoes, lettuce, carrots etc!)