A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum South-facing balcony in Atlanta, GA

My "baby" sister lives in a condo in Atlanta, GA, that has a south-facing balcony and no ground planting area. She does most everything in containers of one kind or another. It gets tons of sun and was already gettin' hot as blue blazes in April since the condo is in the downtown area. She's having trouble finding things that can tolerate those living arrangements. Are there any kinds of flowers or interesting plants that can withstand that environment...other than cacti?

it's been in the 90's here all week,, and my back yard is south facing and gets all afternoon sun until the sun goes down, I've have these,, most of them for years,,

Portulaca grandiflora *(moss rose)
cone flowers
lantana
lavender
Herbs,
Pineapple sage,
salvia's
bachelor buttons,,
marigolds
kangaroo paw
orange african Bulbine
dianthus
jewels of opar
sedum looks really nice in a container pot,, with different varieties in it,, so some will cascade down while others stand tall in the center,, different color combination will look really nice,, especially when it blooms at different times,,

Are some or all of those in containers or in the ground? She has to do containers of some kind for everything.

Diane gave you a great list of plants! I, too, have a balcony that gets sun from noon til it sets in the summer. I've also had success with potato vines - very pretty hanging down from the railing!

Castor bean plants do very well also if she has the room - they get very large tropical leaves, but be careful as the seeds are extremely toxic.

Cannas do well in pots there, vegetables too!

Seems like she mentioned potato vines but I can't recall if she said she's trying them or if she did try them and they turned up their toes. I'll have to ask her.

Cannas do well in pots???? Is it a particular 'flavor' of Canna that does well? That would be very pretty. Would you please elaborate on that.

I have grown dwarf yellow cannas in large pots on my deck with great success. Of course they don't get as large as they would in the ground, but they did get to be a very nice size and had wonderful flowers. I also grew an un-named orange canna in a large pot from another member here last summer and got beautiful flowers.

Here's a picture of my deck in 2004 - I had lots of potato vines growing then - in the small planter boxes on the railing and large pots on the floor, and the smaller pots on the railing have pineapple sage in it. Geraniums in the planter boxes on the floor, and castor bean in the pot in the corner. The 2 small pots on ther railing had gazanias in them - they LOVE the hot sun!


Close-up of potato vines in a very small planter box on the railing:


Another pot full with a penta mixed in - butterflies love them!


Here is the orange canna blooming in a pot.

WOW!! Beautiful pics!!!

Gonna share this info AND the pics with my sister. She'll get all inspired and stuff.

Thanks ever so much!!

maybe she'll join us!

I wish she had the time. She was senior editor at a publishing company in Atlanta and she use to fuss about how disorganized the process was. They made her Managing Editor a few months ago and said "fix it." She's been working almost constantly since then....10-12 hour days, 6 and 7 days a week. Plus she has 2 dogs to take walking twice a day.

oh my... well, it was a thought! maybe when the dust settles?

The potato vines suggestion prompted a memory of my sister telling me something about trying potato vines. I couldn't remember whether she had tried or them or not so emailed her. She said she did do potato vines last year and they did great but that they , her words, "SUCKED water like crazy" so she dropped them this year. She did that because she's working such long hours this year and can't stay on top of the watering to the same extent she could last year.

I'm thinking she may have to do one of those Japanese sand/rock gardens. One of those you run a little rake through to make the lines, ya know? Then she'll be done. LOL