Now that the weather is looking up, it is time to make use of that wonderful balcony. An extended living room, if I may.
We have put two sofas on the balcony, set up a table and chairs and most importantly, added a bit of colour by planting flowers and herbs in flower boxes. I’ve always loved these…especially when you see windows with them hanging underneath, bursts of colour protruding from neat little boxes. My favourite was always red, but for the balcony we decided to have a mixture, after all, we have seven metres of balcony. For now, there are two 1-metre, terracotta-coloured boxes, each with four plants inside.

I was told that I had to leave an ample amount of space on the sides, so I figured that planting four would allow each plant enough room to grow and spread its roots.

This was the first time that I had really planted anythings, so this is big for me.

I started off with the flower box. I put down a layer of flower dirt mixture (yep, technical terms here!), placed each flower in its place, and then filled the rest with regular dirt for all plants.

Flower box

Species of carnation: Dianthus caryophyllus

Poppy anemone: Anemone coronaria

Then, I moved onto the herb box. Here, it was the same process, sans the flower dirt. We chose two rosemary plants and some golden oregano and golden thymian. Handy for barbeques and cooking in general!

The herb box

Now, all we need is a BBQ and summer can come!