Adventures In Living and Gardening

Geraniums Are Tops

The favorite window-box plant is the geranium red or pink for white, cream, or light or dark blue boxes; white for brown, blue, or red boxes. The familiar trailing variegated vinca is excellent with them. Thriving in sun or shade, the vinca needs constant pinching to prevent it from becoming too long. English and German ivies are other trailers for sun or shade. In the sun, low annuals, dwarf marigolds, lobelias and verbenas make nice edgings as does sweet alyssum, in white, purple or lavender. Petunias vie with geraniums in popularity, and any kind can be planted, though the balcony types have the advantage of trailing gracefully over the sides of boxes.

In Virginia, a woman apparently doomed to bed and wheelchair found her means to recovery by having a greenhouse built on a city lot and running it for profit. She scouts seedsmen in China, India, Japan, and England for rare plants. Her knowledge of greenhouse operation came the hard way, by experimentation. Today her greenhouse is stocked to the brim with virtually every kind of gesneriad. Her articles in plant publications whet readers’ appetites for the unusual things she sells over-the-counter and through the mail.

Roof Top Gardens
Whether on one-story structures or on skyscrapers, rooftop gardens are havens with a charm of their own. For the owners, they provide private worlds in which to grow plants and escape the bustle of city life. All this, of course, is made possible with soil brought in and carried to the top of the building for the pots and boxes that comprise the rooftop garden. If you have ever seen a penthouse garden, you know what a feeling of space it gives, especially if the building is high. It is like being on a mountain top, with a panoramic view that on clear days seems limitless.

As a group, bulbs are outstanding plants colorful, showy, and generally easy to grow. Many have evergreen foliage; with others, the leaves ripen after flowering and the bulbs are stored and started again, year after year. Some bulbs are hardy, others, tender, though what is and is not hardy in a particular area is a matter of winter temperature averages. In cold regions, tender types tuberous begonias, gloxinias, calla lilies, and gloriosa lilies can be treated like summer container plants. This gives the gardener a wide variety to grow from earliest spring to late fall.