My Project

While here in Spain, I've accepted one project while I'm exploring the city and lazing around reading lots of books catching some sun.  It is the balconey.

Ryan's apartment has this nice simple balconey that has large double doors in the living room and our bed room.  This is the source of the lovely sea breeze I enjoy each day, the sound of those darn children at recess, and of course my favorite place to catch some sun. 

Upon arrival I notice there were a few plants left from previous owners although most don't look great and some have weeds mixed in with them.  There is a large stack of empty terra cotta pots, various pieces of furniture or broken shutters, and a barren metal structure that I assume once was an awning.  Living in Barri Gotic equates to old buildings and rarely air conditioning hence why we leave the doors open all day and spend a lot of time outside when the hot sun isn't baking the tile and metal.  This quickly became the area that I knew should be fixed up and had such great potential. 

I zoomed in on this picture so you can more easily see the plants as I found them. 

You can see some of the trash left although there is a bit moe hiding behind those shutters!

I'm lucky that Ryan loves life and enjoys plants, so our first step is fixing up the plants.  In my IKEA post, I had shown you the plant we had bought for our deck.  Since then the lavendar took a turn for the worse almost completely dying.  I think I have it starting to revive now...I have about 6 stalks that are green again. The huge fan like plant decided it didn't like the sun and has shrivled up.  Since then I've brought it inside and feed it water daily.  The stallk is still green, so I have hope.  A few days ago I spent a lovely afternoon strolling down the la rambla which has numerous florists selling not only cut flowers but potted plants and herbs.  After eyeing all the different vendors I choose one which had a little old lady who I believe spoke Catalan and bought a small basil plant and a large mint pot (for all those mojitos ;).  So far they seem happy although the Basil did need a little water, whoops. 

This first large task is going to consist of me getting rid of the dead plants, trimming back the alive ones, and transplanting a lot of our new ones.  One of the tricky questions has been placement since as you can tell a lot of my plants are sensitive to all this sun.  It took a few days and some rearranging to get to where I am now. 

This side looks much better without all that junk!  The Jasmine smells lovely in the evening and early morning and has 8 blooms to date.  The Aloe and Himalayan both need to be transplanted soon as they seem to be taking over their pots!

My basil is now flowering (which of course I have to pinch off to preserve flavor and my lavendar is slowly bouncing back.

The next step is to hang my lanterns and string lights.  I'd also like to find some cushions for the chairs and plant something in that hanging box planter. I'll update with more pictures as things progress :)