My little garden in Japan may 2011

It is the end of May and I almost forgot to do the monthly update, so just to finish the month here is how my garden is doing. Most plants are doing great, all the vegetables are growing like crazy and many of the other plants are getting new leaves.

Summer is here

With summer so close, a lot of the winter flowers are starting to fade. The flowerboxes are starting to look a bit shaggy and dull. I think is time I take away the pansies from the flowerbox and get new flowers for this season. The good part is that many of the summer flowers are starting to bloom. The calla lily has been flowering since a couple weeks ago, the same for the lavender. The dahlia just started blooming, the survivor chocolate cosmos also has some buttons and the zempasuchitl is right behind. All summer flowers are ready to go.

All the summer flowers are ready to go

The tomatoes are already growing fruit, and they keep growing more and more. If I don’t check on them just one day, they go away from the trellis. They are certainly unruly, but I am sure the tomatoes will be worth it.

The first tomatoes of the season

The strawberries are a bit worrisome, they still don’t have any blooms. I was expecting some all this month but so far nothing. I hope they didn't waste all their energy back at April with the vacation drought. Not much I can do but wait.

The blueberries are getting bigger every day. Since they flowered in the windy days, I was afraid I would not get much fruit, but it seems a lot of them made it. I am glad that the assisted pollination worked. Now I just have to hope the birds don't decide to take them away.

Delicious blueberries

The only bad news is the red rose. It got sick since I went to Mexico, and despite my best efforts I doesn't seem to be getting better. It had some flower buds but it dropped them, along with all the leaves, now is just a couple of sticks that keep getting more and more yellow every day. I think I will have to say good bye and get a new one, but I still have a little hope.

With all the plants growing so much, I need to keep pruning very diligently or the balcony will become a jungle very fast. It is definitely the start of summer at My little balcony.

Blueberries and autumn color in my garden

I got a bit busy this week so I will merge my Friday and Sunday posts into one today.

Ever since I started my garden, I have been wanting to get some type of berry bush, but because I didn't know much about them, and because I couldn't decide what type of berries I wanted, I didn't got any until now.

I chose blueberries after a nice trip to a ブルーベリー食べ放題「たべほうだい」（all you can eat）farm this summer, where we got a nice basket of very delicious berries. Also because, after some research, I found out is easy enough to grow some blueberries in containers, if you get them the proper environment.

Delicious blueberries!

So, finally, I got two nice looking plants at the garden center sale where I got the flowers for blooming day. I already set them to be on their own pot and hopefully they will grow well next year and start giving some berries soon. I will write about what I learned on how to take care of blueberries later, so keep posted.

My new blueberry plants

Along with the blueberries, one more thing also come to my little garden in japan. Some nice autumn colors.

All this past months I have been seeing a lot of very beautiful autumn photos from gardens around the world. They show amazing shades of yellows, reds, silvers, browns and more. I must admit, every time I saw so many beautiful images and plants, I felt a bit left out. Because my little container garden in a balcony doesn’t really have much foliage, and very few of my plants show much changes for autumn, I wasn’t expecting to have much colors for this season. Even my little maple was in bad shape after this summer vacation drought, so I didn't thought it would have much either.

The blueberry had a nice tone of red for autumn

Luckily, with the coming of the blueberries, I got a small hint of red. Some of the lower leaves were already changing, which I thought they look very nice and I even comment on it to the plant (yes, I do speak to the plants some times, I got it from my grandmother, call me crazy but I think it works). That little comment must have hit the pride of the other plants, because that same week some of the leaves of the maple started to change, the same for the grape, which started to get a nice hint of yellow. Just like that autumn had finally arrived to my little balcony garden in japan; Is always so nice when you get a nice surprise from your garden.

My grape got a nice hint of yellow

My little japanese maple, a bit roughed up,
but changing to beautiful colors

Now talking about the blog carnival. Remember it starts the 30th of this month. All you have to do to participate is make a post about your favorite flower, vegetable, bush, tree, cactus, shrub, herb, moss, algae, fern, fruit, root, creeper, climber, grass, weed, bulb or any other plant you love (or more than one if you prefer).

I will post a small widget here that will allow you to input a link to your blog or website. Send me a mail if you need more information. And have a great weekend!