North-facing does not mean dull. Some of the best foliage plants do better out of direct sun.
Use pale gravel, light-coloured containers and a mirror or white wall to bounce light around.
If you go away for more than three days in summer, your containers need a watering system. A basic drip kit costs under EUR 100 and takes an afternoon to install.
Start with 10 minutes at 6:00 every morning and adjust after a week by checking how damp the soil is 5 cm down.
No tap on the balcony? A gravity-fed system from a 50-litre water barrel works for a week’s holiday.
It is the question we get asked most, and the honest answer is: it depends on the building, and you should check.
Austrian standards typically design residential balconies for an imposed load of around 400 kg per square metre, but older buildings and cantilevered balconies can be lower. Your property manager or the building plans will have the figure.
Use lightweight fibreglass or plastic containers, fill the bottom third with expanded clay instead of soil (only for deep pots), and put the heaviest items near the wall, not at the edge.
After designing more than 200 small spaces, the same problems come up again and again.
Lining the edges with pots leaves an empty middle and makes the space feel smaller. Bring one planted element forward to create depth.
Ten small pots look cluttered and dry out daily. Three large ones look intentional.
Measure before you buy. You need 60 cm of clearance behind a chair to pull it out.
Climbers on a trellis or a single multi-stem tree add a ceiling to the room.
You see your courtyard from the kitchen far more often than you sit in it. Design the view through the window first.
October is the month that decides how your containers come through winter. Work through this list on a dry weekend.
Evergreens in pots still need water in winter on mild, dry days. More of them die of drought in February than of cold.
Wild bees in Austria number over 690 species, and many of them depend on specific native plants. A balcony or courtyard can make a real difference, especially if you choose plants that flower in sequence.
Pasque flower (Pulsatilla vulgaris) and cowslip (Primula veris) feed the first queens out of hibernation.
Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare), meadow sage (Salvia pratensis) and wild marjoram are bee magnets and handle dry containers well.
Field scabious (Knautia arvensis) and Aster amellus keep going into October when food is scarce.
Hollow stems left standing over winter are where many solitary bees nest. Cut back in late March, not October.
A raised bed is the single most useful thing you can add to a small yard. It warms up earlier in spring, drains well, and saves your back. Getting the size right matters more than the material.
You need to reach the middle from either side without stepping on the soil. Against a wall, keep it to 60 to 70 cm.
40 cm is enough for most vegetables. 80 cm means no bending at all, but needs far more soil (around 750 litres for a 120 × 80 bed).
Use the hügelkultur approach: branches and prunings at the bottom, then turned turf or leaves, then compost, then 20 to 25 cm of good topsoil mix on top. It settles over the first year, so top up in autumn.
Untreated larch lasts 10 to 15 years and is local to Styria. Corten steel lasts longer and looks sharp in a modern courtyard but heats up in full sun.
A south-facing balcony in Graz can hit 45°C at pot level in July. Most bedding plants from the supermarket give up by mid-summer. These twelve do not.
Rosemary, thyme, oregano and sage all come from Mediterranean hillsides and want exactly what a hot balcony offers: sun, wind and soil that dries out between waterings. Plant them in a gritty mix with a third horticultural grit.
Stipa tenuissima and Pennisetum give movement and screening without the weight of shrubs.
Use the biggest containers your balcony can safely carry. A 40-litre pot holds water three times longer than a 15-litre one, and the roots stay cooler.