The best balcony plants and how to care for them | House & Garden

The beautiful balcony plants on the terrace at the London house of Henrietta Courtauld of the Land Gardeners

The smallest outdoor spaces can be transformed into flowery, leafy pockets of scent and colour, with the right balcony plants. From a large balcony to a bit of window ledge, there are containers and plants to adorn them. Troughs can be secured to sills; planters and holders can be hung from railings; ledges can be made fit for pots with miniature railings; and – in the style of the courtyards of Cordoba, where geraniums splash the sides of houses with red and pink – pots can be attached to fences and walls. Fill them with long-flowering, trailing plants for waterfalls of colour throughout the summer. On larger balconies, there is room for plants in standing pots to create a mini urban oasis.

Agapanthus, such as the new long-flowering cultivar Midnight Sky, are delightful in pots; as well as producing sculptural boules of blue flowers, they have exotic-looking strappy leaves. For blue flowers that will trail out of a windowbox, try blue rock bindweed, Convolvulus sabatius (which is not nightmarishly invasive as hedge bindweed is) and the breathtaking ultramarine Glandora prostrata 'Heavenly Blue'; the latter requires ericaceous compost.

Producing manes of red and orange, trailing nasturtiums (such as 'Empress of India') and ivy-leaved geraniums (such as Pelargonium 'April Hamilton') have the flower power to perform all summer. Less well-known is Lotus berthelotii, which has flame-like copper-ruby blooms amongst glaucous foliage. Also good for tumbling over the side of a balcony are trailing forms of petunia and calibrachoa – both reliable for non-stop flowering, if they are protected from slugs.

Later in the season,