Plants for Exposed Balconies

Cherry Trees

Orchard trees are a great way to bring some height variation to your balcony flora and, as it turns out, they are also quite easy to grow in pots.

Potted, large trees can be quite expensive (looking at you japanese maple) but orchard trees, intended for a home owner's backyard and not specifically the balcony, are surprisingly affordable. At least in my region you can pickup a 1.50 - 2.00m tree for around 30€ which is quite a good deal in terms of €/m.

I guess most fruit tree variations will work but my experience is currently limited to cherry and sour cherry trees. Cherry trees are also a great choice because they don't need a second specimen to pollinate so you can already have some fruits with a single tree.

With a large enough pot, tending to your tree is mostly limited to providing enough water and fertilizer (and they do drink a lot when it gets hot) and keeping any pests in check. I repot my trees every two years and they are doing reasonably well.

Of course you can't keep them potted forever as the container size required will quickly get pretty large. I've not done this yet but I would suggest trying to sell them off on your local online marketplace when the time comes and they might even pay for themselves.

Cypress

The trusty cypress tree - decorative and pretty easy to take care of. It has steady growth and is a popular privacy screen.

Caring for it is pretty much the same as for the cherry tree. But, because cypress trees are evergreen and mediterranean plants, you have to shelter them a little bit better from strong winds during the winter months. Otherwise they might get brown spots in their foliage.

Oleander

We'll continue with mediterranean plants but this time a purely decorative one, the oleander. They are available in wide variety of colors from white over pink to deep red and even yellow.

They are very frugal apart from taking up much space and therefore quickly requiring bigger pots. In return you are rewarded with a plant that resists any heat and storm and blooms the whole season (aside: they also make quite a mess to clean up when the flowers invitably fade).

The only trick bit is overwintering. As they are not used to cold climates you have to take some precautions so they make it through the frosty season. We usually put the pots onto blocks of styrofoam, wrap them in some insulating material and finally add lots of plant cuttings onto the soil so it is somewhat insulated from all sides.

Wrapped like this they always made it through. Worst case you have to cut some of the damaged twigs but that even seems to encourage new groth as we had to cut one plant basically back to the stem and it grew new, 70 cm long, branches in one season.

Elderflower

Elderflowers are native to Austria and therefore well adapted to the climate. They are pretty fast growing and can get up to a couple meters tall (depending on the variety).

Given a large enough container, elderflowers are easy to care for. Regular waterings with the occasional fertilizer dose does the trick.

I found that they don't grow particularly fast when they are potted but they still flower a lot (which all insects love) and produce berries.

The flowers can be processed to make elderflower juice and the berries can be used to make tea.

Hop

The hop plant is a fast growing climbing plant. It is winter-hardy although all branches will wilter but new shoots will sprout from the plant in spring.

As with most large and fast growing plants, the bigger the pot the better the growth. I have mine in a 80 x 40 x 40cm planter and it easily covered a 2m trellis (and more if I wouldn't have run out of trellis).

The most important aspect of caring for it is staying on top of its water consumption as it tends to require progressivly more as it grows.

Peppers

The first entry in this list, the humble pepper plant, thrives in the sunny and dry conditions that are so often found on balconies. Bell pepper or chilis, the exact variety doesn't matter too much as long as the plant's stalks are not too flimsy so they can withstand high wind speeds as well as they do high temperatures.

The only real requirement is to give them as much sunlight as possible so the fruits can properly ripen. Apart from that you only need to water them regularly, occasionally infused with some liquid fertilizer (~ once a week).

Horseradish

A rather surprising entry to the list is horseradish. It is a perennial plant with edible, spicy roots that can be harvested in autumn. It blooms quite early in spring which attracts a lot of insects and then grows lush decorative leaves.

If you are not after the most productive harvest the pot size doesn't matter too much but of course bigger is better in this case as well as the roots need a lot of space to properly develop.

Horseradish requires quite a bit of water so you need to keep an eye out for that.

Rocket

A pretty resilient leaf vegetable is rocket, which stays unscathed during storms and is heat tolerant as well. Rocket grows very quickly and can be harvested during most of the season if it is cut regularly.

Beware that it tends to overgrow other plants and that it will spread aggressively to every little patch of soil when you let the seed pods fully develop.

Monk's Cress

Not only is tropaeolum majus a real eye catcher with its big circular leaves and red to yellow flowers but it is also incredible resistant to strong winds and heigh temperatures.

Monk's cress is an annual plant that can be sown in spring and will grow quickly until early autumn. The plant is not a real climber but tends to grow upwards when hitting obstacles, so with a bit of help it can also scale a trellis.

Additionally all above-ground parts of the plant are edible and in taste are reminiscent of regular garden cress.

Rosemary

Nope, still not done with mediterranean plants. Rosemary doesn't really need much of an introduction - one of the most loved and distinct tasting herbs that give many dishes their special note.

Growing it is luckily pretty straight forward and as long as it has enough space and water it will endure full sun without complaints. The twigs can be harvested during the whole growing season and are also good candidates for drying. I usually give the plant a final cut in autumn to keep it compact.

Rosemary is not frost resistant, so you need to make sure that it has a somewhat sheltered place and maybe a styrofoam base. With those precautions I usually don't have an issue and it will happily grow back in spring.

Petunia

Petunias are available in a wide variety of colors and though they look delicate are pretty though. They have no problems with strong winds and happily bake in the full sun all day long.

As with most plants on this list, sufficient water and a tad of fertilizer are all they really need.