Tips for a beautiful, easy-care balcony that attracts animals

Lil­li Era­sin from Ber­lin-Mit­te shows us her easy-care, beau­tiful, ani­mal-attrac­ting bal­c­o­ny in the midd­le of Ber­lin and gives us some tips. Can you see the Ber­lin TV tower shi­ning among the flowers? Lil­li raves about bal­co­nies, flowers and the ani­mals that visit her bal­c­o­ny. The many fly­ing visi­tors — insects and birds — also give her the grea­test plea­su­re. Fol­lo­wed by toxin-free toma­toes and a varie­ty of fresh sea­so­nal deli­ca­ci­es. Gar­de­ner Lil­li has a uni­que flower store in Ber­lin with fair­ly pro­du­ced and traded flowers, pre­fer­a­b­ly from regio­nal and orga­nic farms. Even the super easy-care wild plants are sold the­re. Thank you Lil­li for allo­wing us to visit your realm. Let yours­elf be enchan­ted and inspi­red with tips for a beau­tiful, easy-care, ani­mal-attrac­ting bal­c­o­ny. 

Lil­li raves: When I had a visit from lady but­ter­flies on the Pata­go­ni­an ver­be­na last year, I thought I was going to faint with joy, I was so plea­sed! Well, the­re are loads of bees and hover­flies and all sorts here. With ani­mal visi­tors, whe­ther it’s gold­fin­ches that have sud­den­ly arri­ved or tits that are living here at the moment, I have the fee­ling that the­re are few things that make you hap­pier than natu­re, and I don’t mean walks in the park, but this imme­dia­te natu­re with squir­rels, as it is with you, or but­ter­flies or bees. Even fin­ding ants in the pots is extre­me­ly tou­ch­ing. That makes me incre­di­bly hap­py. I think it’s the ani­mals, it’s sim­ply life its­elf that makes the plants bloom. Even in their tran­si­ence, as it is now on the bal­c­o­ny, it’s so beau­tiful. And then you also have some­thing that you can eat that is healt­hi­er than what you might even get from the health food store. But the vital sub­s­tances and vit­amins in the vege­ta­bles or herbs from the bal­c­o­ny in a direct har­ve­st are much, much hig­her. A bal­c­o­ny is win-win-win-win!

Lil­li is not only good with flowers, her toma­toes are also a stun­ner. The Ber­lin air is good for you :). With a view of the Ber­lin TV tower and the Rotes Rat­haus :).

Quo­te Lil­li: This pic­tu­re tou­ch­es me. This is my sweetie’s hand. When I don’t have to go to the who­le­sa­le mar­ket, we have break­fast in bed. And there’s always a handful of har­ve­st from the bal­c­o­ny, which my swee­tie coll­ects and dra­pes on the pla­te. On this day, the­re was deli­cious French tar­ra­gon, small fresh mint lea­ves, this incre­di­bly unu­su­al, almost sweet aro­ma­tic cin­na­mon basil, deli­cious, hap­pi­ness-indu­cing autumn raspber­ries, the lush­ly gro­wing, crun­chy sweet red marb­le toma­to, deli­ca­te, high-stem­med indoor gar­lic blos­soms, wild straw­ber­ry fla­vor bombs & lemon chi­li — a real­ly crisp, spi­cy pick-me-up! Good mor­ning!

Cat balcony 

Quo­te Lil­li: So in 2011, in the midd­le of Novem­ber, I moved in here. The­re are two bal­co­nies, one is 1.40 x 7.00 meters with a south-west ori­en­ta­ti­on, an ins­a­ne gift, and the other bal­c­o­ny is oppo­si­te with a south-east ori­en­ta­ti­on, is lined very high with a wall, so you don’t want to sit the­re becau­se you feel crow­ded. But I put a big birch tree on the­re and a cat net, and that’s now the cat bal­c­o­ny. At the begin­ning I thought you should only give the cats non-toxic plants, which is why a bam­boo lives the­re, but in the mean­ti­me it has tur­ned out that only Luzie is inte­res­ted in nib­bles any­way, and she eats grass and not­hing else.

Lilli’s personal plant recommendations for a beautiful, easy-care balcony that attracts animals

A long bal­c­o­ny sea­son with lots of dif­fe­rent honey plants is very important to me. The plants I recom­mend, I recom­mend from expe­ri­ence. I have them on my bal­c­o­ny mys­elf and am par­ti­cu­lar­ly enthu­si­a­stic about them. Of cour­se, the­re are also many other tre­asu­res that have not (yet) moved in with us, but are total­ly valuable for a bal­c­o­ny. Wil­lows or a colum­nar apple, for exam­p­le. So this list is total­ly incom­ple­te: I like to plant com­mu­ni­ties in lar­ge pots and asso­cia­te plants with simi­lar requi­re­ments or becau­se of their sup­port­i­ve effect. I like to use dif­fe­rent plant fami­lies and heights. I like ground cover peren­ni­als, which act as a mulch and cover the bare, open soil. I had only mode­ra­te suc­cess with mul­ching last year. I stron­gly advi­se against using hay and I’ll list a few of my WGs:

• Cle­ma­tis and cushion bell­flower share a pot
• Cle­ma­tis, lemon balm, ore­ga­no, cushion bell­flower
• Autumn raspber­ries and mari­golds
• Mother­wort and ground ivy
• Fun­kia and wall cin­na­mon
• Wild vine, gra­pe hya­c­in­ths, scen­ted daf­fo­dils, spring ane­mo­nes, ground ivy and cree­ping ground­sel
• Pata­go­ni­an ver­be­na, agasta­che and glo­be thist­le
• Agasta­che, blood cra­nes­bill, yar­row
• Hol­ly­hock and cra­nes­bill Rozan­ne
• Viper’s bugloss, edel­gam­man­der and knau­tie
• Aster and Phace­lia
• Wild mal­low, lark­spur and ground ivy
• Spur flower and magni­fi­cent cand­le
• Toma­toes, mari­gold, basil
• Straw­ber­ry and gar­lic
• Solomon’s seal, colum­bi­ne, fun­kia, peri­wink­le

I always try to recom­mend a good, uncom­pli­ca­ted mix­tu­re that blooms for as long as pos­si­ble. If you alre­a­dy have some­thing deco­ra­ti­ve on your bal­c­o­ny, then tre­at yours­elf and the spe­cia­li­zed wild bees to a pot of pop­pies, for exam­p­le, that does­n’t flower for so long. A small sel­ec­tion of my favo­ri­tes:

1. Cree­ping ground­sel
2. Lung­wort
3. Wall cin­na­mon
4. Mother­wort
5. Chi­co­ry
6. Cra­nes­bill “Rozan­ne”
7. (Round-lea­ve­d/ peach/ cushion) Bell­flower
8. Pata­go­ni­an ver­be­na
9. Jewel­ry bas­ket
10. Corn­flowers
11. Zin­ni­as
12. Corn pop­py
13. Agasta­che
14. Stone­crop
15. Mal­lows
16. Pur­ple loo­sestri­fe
17. Asters
18. Sedum
19. Beard­ed flower
20. Blue dia­mond
21. Hele­ni­um

Herbs are incre­di­bly good for ever­yo­ne and the­r­e­fo­re unbeata­ble. And not just rose­ma­ry or basil, but also “weeds” such as sting­ing nett­le and gout­weed! Autumn raspber­ries are abso­lut­e­ly ama­zing. I defi­ni­te­ly would­n’t want to do wit­hout them! And I have a gre­at litt­le straw­ber­ry. It’s a cross bet­ween a long-bea­ring month straw­ber­ry and a super tasty wild straw­ber­ry. There’s no shorta­ge of nibbling and snack­ing on our bal­c­o­ny. And: I allow ever­y­thing to go to seed. Only when I reco­gni­ze it and decla­re it real­ly real­ly unsui­ta­ble do I pull it out. Actual­ly, ever­y­thing is wel­co­me and enri­ches the flat-sha­ring com­mu­ni­ties. Cha­mo­mi­le, for exam­p­le, is in almost every pot.

Bird balcony

Lilli’s bal­c­o­ny attracts birds — through fee­ding, water point (clean dai­ly!), vege­ta­ti­on, high bran­ches and let­ting the seed heads ripen. Can you see the gold­finch in the­se pic­tures from mid-April? Birds love to stop off on high bran­ches or bran­ches over­han­ging the para­pet befo­re fly­ing from the­re to the fee­ding sta­ti­on. Lilli’s food dis­pen­ser are con­side­red par­ti­cu­lar­ly hygie­nic. The food insi­de is pro­tec­ted from rain and does not beco­me mol­dy. The drip trays hold some of the fal­ling food. Becau­se even birds are picky and think that the best food is yet to come :).

Who wants to join us in drawing a green ribbon of organic balconies through Berlin and the world?

Our city gar­de­ner Lil­li spo­ke so beau­tiful­ly on MDR tele­vi­si­on. Take a look at her spring bal­c­o­ny in the MDR media libra­ry inspi­re (minu­te 5.02 to 8.43). This is a gre­at con­tri­bu­ti­on. As always, Lil­li is likeable, authen­tic and gives good tips: clim­bing aids made from tights :). 

Comm­ents on the tele­vi­si­on appearance:

• “I wat­ched the post — very beau­tiful, loving, authen­tic — I’m also thril­led, and after the brea­ther indi­ca­ted on their Face­book page (aka com­pa­ny vaca­ti­on) I’ll dri­ve over to Wed­ding and visit the store. By the way, I also loved the tip “milk+water”.”
• “Lil­ly is so nice and the 7 m² roof bal­c­o­ny is a blast. I agree with you about the snack cor­ner and the bird box. Ever­y­thing has its place and yet it’s still ori­gi­nal.”
• “The bal­c­o­ny is a stun­ner — just like the lil­li, I think”

Lilli’s recommendation for a beautiful, easy-care balcony that attracts animals: Effective microorganisms & nettle manure

Lil­li sources Effec­ti­ve Micro­or­ga­nisms from Eußen­hei­mer Manu­fak­tur for her orga­nic flower store. Jür­gen Amt­hor from Eußen­hei­mer Manu­fak­tur was inter­view­ed at the 2019 con­gress, whe­re he gave us a Bal­c­o­ny packa­ge with liquid fer­ti­li­zer and the good Boka­s­hi pel­lets for mul­ching. The­re is a per­ma­nent 5 % dis­count on the enti­re ran­ge with vou­ch­er code AS1009-gnwsu.

Hor­se­tail extra­ct and Nett­le slur­ry obta­ins them from Snoek natu­ral pro­ducts (see inter­view with Kurt Schli­cker in Con­gress 2020, dis­count vou­ch­er for first-time cus­to­mers Orga­nic balcony10).

Blumen-Goldbeck — the unique sustainable flower store in Berlin — …BALSAM FÜR DIE SEELE. 

… Yay dear ones,
befo­re you get bored at home:
Time for bal­co­nies! Now you can grow lots of plants in advan­ce or sow them direct­ly out­side in pots.
Deme­ter seeds, Ter­ra Pre­ta soil, EM fer­ti­li­zer, we have a won­derful sel­ec­tion here!… Sweet flowe­ring plants, bright bag bou­quets, cheerful sea­so­nal bou­quets also with vase, radi­ant, fra­grant bulb flowers in pots, lovin­g­ly plan­ted bal­c­o­ny boxes/pots or even a packet of orga­nic seeds & a bag of orga­nic soil, we bring it to your home or hand it to you through the win­dow. 

…FENSTERL WITH US! 

Web­site Blu­men-Gold­beckFlower store with fair­ly pro­du­ced and traded flowers, pre­fer­a­b­ly from regio­nal and orga­nic farms                 

• Lil­li Era­sin | Mana­ging Direc­tor
• Tege­ler Stra­ße 32 | 13353 Ber­lin
• tel +49 30 4502 4854 
• Store ope­ning hours: Thu: 14:00 ‑19:30, Fri: 9:30–12:00 & 13:00–19:30, Sat: 9:30–17:30
• Deli­very ser­vice: Mon­day & Fri­day
• info@blumen-goldbeck.de
• www.blumen-goldbeck.de
• www.facebook.com/blumengoldbeckberlin
• Insta­gram#blu­men­gold­beck

Balcony congress and book with even more tips for a beautiful, easy-care balcony

Lilli’s enchan­ting bal­c­o­ny in Ber­lin-Mit­te adorns the cover of my book. This is whe­re the title of this year’s 4th Online Orga­nic Bal­c­o­ny Con­gress off :).

A valuable com­po­nent of the 4th Online Orga­nic Bal­c­o­ny Con­gress are inter­views with bal­c­o­ny star­ters of wild­flower bal­co­nies. The inter­views with urban bal­c­o­ny gar­den­ers Marie Fey show how much bal­co­nies can do for bio­di­ver­si­ty and self-suf­fi­ci­en­cy, Ste­fa­nie Bin­der and Atessa Bien­hüls. Lil­li is also the­re. All four inter­views are very inspi­ring and pro­vi­de lots of tips on how to design and main­tain low-main­ten­an­ce bal­co­nies that attract wild­life. Pic­tures of their bal­co­nies embel­lish my book, whe­re you can read more detail­ed infor­ma­ti­on on desig­ning insect-fri­end­ly and bird-fri­end­ly bal­co­nies. With such bal­co­nies, you can expe­ri­ence gre­at natu­re obser­va­tions wit­hout having to tra­vel. You can watch all 27 expert inter­views and 9 live Q&A ses­si­ons on bal­c­o­ny gar­dening here after­wards. The con­gress packa­ge can be purcha­sed for a small pri­ce.