Thanks for the tip about mangoes and poison ivy, MsMary. I should warn Batty.
MW, spiders are *good* bugs. They eat the other bugs.
Anyhow, if you keep your containers outside, the bugs wouldn't get into the house.
I planted a bunch of stuff a couple of weeks ago, and put all the indoor plants out on the balcony at the same time. I have an apartment with a northwest-facing balcony, so we don't get a whole lot of sun. I put in a cherry tomato plant but I don't have a whole lot of hope that it will do much. Still, we'll see.
As for the rest:
* 2 hanging baskets with pink geraniums, purple wave petunias, and white (regular) petunias
* 1 planter with a coleus, a blue/purple torenia, and a bright red tuberous begonia#
* 1 planter with a pink verbena, the leftover white petunias, and a dwarf Alberta spruce##
* In the red wagon, I've got individual pots of: cilantro; basil (the basil's from last year -- I kept it in the house over the winter); chives (which I've had for about 5 years now) and a sprouted garlic clove that might just survive; a bunch of bulbs that I got from a neighbor that produce a purple, trumpet-shaped flower; and a pot of dirt that might or might not produce lilies of the valley this year###.
* On the table, I've got a pink polka-dot plant and a plant I inherited that looks like a mini-schefflera.
I've had both for a number of years. The polka-dot plant shoots out long, gangly stems which bloom like crazy, and then those die and the plant sprouts from the bottom again. I thought the mini-schefflera was a goner a few weeks ago -- it looked great over the winter, but then suddenly a bunch of leaves curled up and dropped off. Maybe I forgot to water it.
Anyhow, I put it outside and it seems to be holding on.
# I had a similar setup in this planter last year. I *love* the look of the tuberous begonia. The torenia is God's gift to the mid-Atlantic gardener -- it's heat tolerant, loves humidity, doesn't mind if you don't water it every day, and the spent blooms shrivel away to nothing on their own.
## I bought the spruce tree at Yule to decorate the balcony, and figured if it survived the winter, I'd be ahead. It was doing great until I transplanted it; now it seems to have croaked. Oh well...
### I dug the lilies of the valley out of Mom's yard last spring. Last fall, I stuck the pot in the storage closet with the pot of bulbs, and now I'm debating whether that killed 'em. Something seems to be coming up in the pot, but it might just be weeds. Time will tell.
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