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Today, the Gardening Gamble soars to new heights as the teams take on the new urban garden - balconies. Watch as neighbours help transform a limited space in a limited time.

Landscapers:
Rena Hans, Camilla House Imports Ltd.
Beth Edney, CLD, Designs By the Yard Inc.

This Week’s Dirt:

• Propagating tropical plants
• Heritage Plants
• Colourful leaves…not just in the Fall anymore!

Purvis' balcony before Purvis' balcony after Purvis' balcony before Purvis' balcony after

PROJECT: Propagating tropical plants Beth Edney Tropical plants are a great way to bring a touch of the exotic to your garden. However, building your garden of paradise with tropicals can cost you a fortune! A great idea to build up your plant collection is to propagate your own plants and trade the cuttings with your friends or family. Here's a propagating technique that works with most fleshy-leafed tropical plants: Take a 2.5 cm cutting from one of the leaves of the full-sized plant Put some rooting hormone on one end of the cutting and stick that end into a pot of soil. Choose your pot carefully. A smaller sized pot will encourage faster rooting since all the growth energy is concentrated on growing roots to fill a small pot rather than a large pot. Place several cuttings in one pot. As these cuttings grow, they will become one plant. Mist the cuttings with a light spray of water and then cover the pot with clear plastic to create a greenhouse effect. Depending on what kind of plant you are propagating, roots will start to form in about 14 days. This technique will work well with the following plants: African Violets Krotens Begonias

Holman's balcony before Holman's balcony after Holman's balcony before Holman's balcony after

PROJECT: Heritage Plants Rena Hans, Camilla House Imports Ltd. Heritage plants are achieved by crossing the standard properties of an established plant with the properties of a newer plant to create an "old" plant with new properties. i.e.: colour, scent, blooms, etc. Rena used several heritage plants in her containers. The following is a list and properties of some of her favorites. Tutti-Frutti (Agastache): Several new hybrids varieties of Agastache or Hyssop have been developed in recent years. All are dependable for a long flowering season and most have a delicious fragrance. This selection has been developed to produce tubular lavender-pink flowers in a loose spike, with the foliage actually smelling like tutti-frutti. Sedum Neon (Sedum): This is a dependable choice for the late summer and fall garden, displaying bright foliage early in the season, and then a colourful neon display of flowers in the fall. This sedum begins to produce green broccoli-like buds in mid-summer, which gradually opens into enormous deep rosy-pink flower heads, finally deepening to a rich, rusty-red. Heavy Metal Switch Grass (Panicum virgatum): This ornamental grass forms a stiffly upright clump of powdery-blue leaves, bearing airy heads of tiny green flowers in late summer. Leaf tips turn burgundy in the fall. Flowers are good for cutting, fresh or dried. Clumps are easily divided in the spring. This grass is drought tolerant once established.