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Apartment Garden Blues (Blog): Birds in the Garden

Details: Published on Friday, February 15 2013 01:03; Written by Alexandra Martin

One of my hobbies is birdwatching. I try to photograph each wild bird species I see (that doesn’t always work out), and I document all of the birds I’ve seen. I have a separate list for birds that I can see in my balcony garden or in the trees just beyond my balcony. To attract birds to my urban balcony garden, I put out black oil sunflower seeds and sugar water for hummingbirds. The list is arranged from the bird species I see most often down to the birds just spotted once or twice.

Balcony Garden Bird List

House Finch
Mourning Dove
Anna’s Hummingbird
American Crow
House Sparrow
House Wren
Nashville Warbler
Yellow-Rumped Warbler
Nuttall’s Woodpecker
White-Crowned Sparrow
Lesser Goldfinch

All of these birds are commonly seen birds in Southern California. Where do you live, and what are the bird species you see most often in your balcony container garden?

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Alexandra Martin is a professional writer from Southern California who grows vegetables, herbs, lots of aloe vera and one giant Boston fern in her balcony garden. She also grows dracaena, pothos and English ivy indoors. She loves traveling and birdwatching in addition to gardening.

Apartment Garden Blues (Blog): My Favorite Plants

Details: Published on Friday, February 08 2013 00:19; Written by Alexandra Martin

Peppermint plant To start out my new blog “For the Love of Gardening,” I’m going to talk about my favorite container plants to grow. It’s hard to choose just one plant, but I think I can narrow it down to three.

3. Saguaro cactus. My mother moved to Arizona a few years ago, and when I visit her, I’m always in awe of the giant saguaro cactus. They bloom at night in May, and people tour gardens in order to see many cactus species bloom. A few years ago, she gave me some seeds she bought at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and I started growing some. Years later, they’re only the size of a pea. It’s quite amazing to grow a slow-growing plant in order to appreciate the full-grown plants in public or private gardens and in the wild. It’s very humbling.

2. Sunflower. Not only do I love the teeny-tiny saguaro cactus that I’m growing that will take 75 years to start growing a side arm, but I also love the rapid growth and short life span of the mammoth sunflower. It’s fascinating to watch a sunflower begin the day with its head in one direction and then face the other direction at night (it’s a heliotrope). Sunflowers are fast-growing, pretty, and they attract lots of wildlife. Oh, and they give plenty of seeds for a yummy snack!

1. Mint. Both spearmint and peppermint are probably the easiest plants you could ever try to grow. Mint is awesome in containers, and with just a little pruning, you can have a lush little bush that smells great with basically no work! And the best part about it? Whatever mint you prune off can be made into a delicious tea!

What’s your favorite plant to grow?

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