Identifying and Treating Rust Fungus
Rust fungus appears as a brown rusty coating or spotting on plant leaves and stems, and the spores will be orange-brown raised bumps on the undersides of the plant leaves. If you check your container plants often, you will be able to spot rust early on and treat it before it becomes too serious in your balcony garden.
How to Attract American Goldfinches and Lesser Goldfinches
Intro: The American goldfinch may be one of the first wild birds you see in your balcony garden. These birds are common and easy to attract, and the males display a beautiful clear and bright yellow color (they are also called the wild canary). Male American goldfinches also have a black cap and black wings with a horizontal white stripe. Although they are a breathtaking yellow in the summer, they turn a dull yellow-brown during the winter months (due to a full molt). Females are a dull yellow-brown all year and have black wings but no black on the head. Both males and females are white on the rump.
Keeping Rats Out of the Garden
Sometimes rats and mice can discover paradise near humans. Container gardens, especially those with birdfeeders, can invite these little rodents. Our job as balcony container gardeners is to be stewards to nature, so natural remedies for ridding ourselves of unwanted creatures are always better than traps and poisons. Here are some hints that you may have a rat neighbor and some ways to drive that neighbor away.
How to Choose Birdseed
When it comes to feeding the wild birds at your balcony garden birdfeeder, you may pick up the cutest or cheapest bird feeder (or even make your own), and purchase some cheap birdseed. Although it may work on one or two species of common wild birds, this is not the best way to go about attracting birds to your balcony container garden.
Birdbaths for the Balcony Garden
Birdbaths, along with birdfeeders and a lot of container plants, can encourage wild birds to visit and keep coming back to your balcony garden. Birdfeeders and plants provide birdseed and safe resting places, and birdbaths can complete your balcony bird habitat by providing a place for birds to bathe, cool off and get a drink.
