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A lot has changed in our roof garden since my last post! As you might remember, we were overrun by diverse pests like fungus gnat larvae and Greenhouse whiteflys (and greenflys, and leafhoppers … 2019 hasn’t been kind to our gardening ambitions). I killed most of them using nematodes and neem oil, but not every plan recovered fully. My basil – the herb I’ve been looking forward to having fresh again – is hanging by a thread.

The biggest change on the terrace is the hanging pot system my mother built on her latest visit. We rent and can’t drill holes, but need to go vertical in order to keep a good number of plants. My tomato plants are now living an elevated existence created by my mom using fence posts and a bit of rope. She’s a genius when it comes to these things!

Sadly, my clematis suddenly withered after growing madly for a while. No idea what happened. It wasn’t sick or infested. Maybe it doesn’t like so much sun? I’ll have to research that. Not all hope is lost, though, because it grew a new sprout. On the bright side, my lime tree loves its sunny location! It has plenty of little white blossoms.

There are slowly but surely lots of flowers and blossoms. The chamomile, the petunia, and the sweet pea are all starting to be abloom.

Funnily enough, I have a beautiful clematis – completely by accident! Two plants sprouted in my flower box that I hadn’t sown, but I left them in out of curiosity. Turns out they were seeds from the clematis that died on me last year, because I had reused soil from its pot. Even though it doesn’t have any space in the box, it seems to feel just dandy and produces lots of flowers.