Spanish Style Balcony Gardening No Matter Where You Are

I'm sitting here enjoying the afternoon sun and looking through the plant catalogues. I had come across a post in a Spanish newspaper online. The header starts with the important parts of a Spanish garden fruit trees and plants. Many people in Spain garden exclusively on their balcony.

When the writers Clodagh & Dick Handscombe mentioned you could grow strawberries, citrus, peach apple, pear, pomegranate , avocado and fig trees in less than a square metre it got me to thinking. They suggested using dwarf root stocks in containers filled with nutrient rich soil in well draining containers.

Fruit trees offer many benefits. Flowering in the spring then filling with fruit in the summer and finally the colors of autumn. The fruit trees are truly a multi season plant to not only bear fruit but color your yard. And it's just perfect for a small yard or balcony. Imagine home grown kiwi.

I've had fruit trees but always grew them in the ground. Never ever thought of putting them in containers. So as I sit here I'm looking at fruit trees in the plant catalogues online.

Peaches grow really well in this part of Texas so will see which dwarfs will grow well. Also will need to look for some sterile trees as the odds of finding another fruit tree to pollinate will not be really good odds. I've grown strawberries in a field and in one of those strawberry barrels. I could fit a strawberry barrel next to the bouganvilla. Lemons also are a good choice.

Olive trees are also another type of fruit growing well in south Texas. In reading it seems like most of these dwarfs are grafted to a particular type of root stock to keep the tree small. And some are kept small by using bonsai techniques. All sorts of possibilities

All in a gardener's day,