She Thought Her Gardening Days Were Over, Until a Tiny Balcony Brought Her Garden Back
After years of working in expansive gardens, one gardener found herself living in an apartment with far less space and far less energy for planting. The move came during a period when nearly everything seemed exhausting, and gardening was one of the hobbies she simply couldn’t bring herself to keep up with.
For someone who had spent years surrounded by plants, though, the absence of greenery eventually became impossible to ignore. The apartment felt different without that familiar sense of life around her, and she started wondering whether even a small balcony could give her some of it back.
Her Indoor Plants Were Already Fighting for Survival
The situation inside the apartment wasn’t exactly encouraging. For more than six months, her indoor plants had been battling thrips, and six plants had already been lost in the process.
The survivors had been separated into different rooms as part of an ongoing quarantine. She joked that she had become so tired of one particular Monstera that seeing it in the bathroom had become its own form of punishment.
Six Plants Were Already Gone
She had never dealt with sick plants on this scale during her previous 20 years of gardening. The sudden infestation caught her completely off guard and forced her to learn an entirely new set of plant-care skills.
It was depressing to watch plants die after spending so much time caring for them. But the experience also changed her, and she realized that she had become a much more knowledgeable plant caretaker because of everything she had been forced to figure out.
Then She Started Missing the Greenery
Eventually, the lack of plants in her living room began bothering her more than the effort of gardening. She missed having greenery around her, even if she couldn’t recreate the large gardens she had known before.
That was when she decided to give the balcony another chance. It wouldn’t be acres of plants, but it could still be somewhere alive, colorful, and welcoming.
The Balcony Finally Started Coming Together
She cleaned up the balcony and began filling it with plants that could handle the available space. She also found some used chairs through Marketplace, giving the little outdoor area somewhere to sit and enjoy.
Suddenly, the balcony wasn’t just an overlooked part of the apartment anymore. It had become a small retreat where she could sit among flowers and reconnect with the part of herself that had always loved gardening.
Years of Gardening Had Left a Mark
For more than a decade, she had been fortunate enough to work in gardens containing perennials, trees, bushes, and native plants spread across large areas. Gardening wasn’t merely something she did occasionally. It had been a major part of her life.
She remembered planting and pruning, dealing with weeds, and removing plants that grew aggressively enough to crowd out everything around them. Those long days left her exhausted, but it was the satisfying kind of exhaustion that came from working outside with her hands.
She Missed the Feeling of Working the Land
What she missed most wasn’t necessarily having enormous gardens to maintain. It was the sensory experience that came with them.
She missed the smell of soil, the warmth of sunlight hitting her face at just the right angle, and the feeling of being completely worn out after spending hours caring for plants. Most of all, she missed knowing that the gardens were providing food and habitat for insects and other small creatures.
The Balcony Became the Best Option for Now
She knew the balcony couldn’t replace those larger gardens. Some of the plants she had chosen preferred being planted directly in the ground, and she already expected that several wouldn’t survive the transition to containers through the following year.
But that wasn’t really the point. For now, this was what she could manage, and simply having flowers growing around her again was already making her feel better.
The First New Flowers Felt Like a Fresh Start
As the balcony garden settled in, she began noticing new flower buds appearing. Those tiny signs of growth gave her something to look forward to.
Instead of focusing on what she couldn’t have anymore, she found herself getting excited about what could still happen in the space she had. The balcony wasn’t the garden she remembered, but it was becoming her new little version of one.
She Chose Flowers for Pollinators
The balcony ended up featuring coneflowers, coreopsis, marigolds, and dianthus. One particular coreopsis, affectionately nicknamed “Little Corey,” wasn’t doing especially well, but it remained one of her favorites.
She also planned to add more marigolds and at least one mum before the end of the month. The remaining empty pots weren’t going to stay empty for long.
Then the Mice Discovered the Balcony
There was, however, one unexpected problem waiting outside. Because she lived in the country, mice had already found their way into the apartment and onto the balcony.
The mice were surprisingly athletic. She had watched them climb up the building’s siding at night, performing what looked like tiny acrobatic routines as they made their way toward the attic.
She Didn’t Want to Hurt Them
Although the mice had become a nuisance, she didn’t want to trap or kill them. She had already managed to catch and release the ones that made it inside the apartment.
The bigger issue was the balcony itself. She was tired of waking up to find around ten new droppings outside her door every morning, so she started looking for a way to convince the mice to find somewhere else to rest.
A Simple Deterrent Finally Worked
After searching for ways to discourage mice, she began using eucalyptus oil and eventually sage oil sticks. The results weren’t guaranteed to work everywhere, but in her situation, they appeared to make the balcony much less attractive to the rodents.
Eventually, the daily droppings stopped. It was a small victory, but after everything else she had been dealing with, having a balcony free of mouse mess made enjoying the garden considerably easier.
The Late-Summer Sounds Made It Feel Like Home
One evening, she sat outside surrounded by her potted flowers and listened to the late-summer cicadas. Beyond the balcony, she could still see plenty of trees, even though some of them were Bradford pears.
For a moment, the apartment didn’t feel like such a departure from the gardens she had loved. She could still hear insects, see bees moving between flowers, and enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by green life.
Then a Hummingbird Appeared
The most memorable visitor arrived while she was writing about the garden. A hummingbird suddenly flew toward the coneflowers and began feeding among the flowers.
The gardener watched as the tiny bird briefly looked directly at her. She joked that the bird’s two-second glance probably felt like ten minutes in hummingbird time, but the moment meant much more than a photograph could have captured.
The Balcony Had Given Her Something Back
She hadn’t expected a collection of pots on an apartment balcony to make such a difference. After months of exhaustion, plant losses, and dealing with pests, the small garden gave her somewhere peaceful to sit and reconnect with something she deeply missed.
It wasn’t the acres of gardens she had worked in for years, and she knew some of the plants might not return next season. Still, the bees, flowers, cicadas, and unexpected hummingbird had reminded her that gardening didn’t have to be perfect or enormous to matter.
She Still Hopes to Return to the Dirt
The balcony isn’t the end of her gardening story. She still hopes that someday she’ll have the opportunity to work with larger gardens and get her hands back into the soil properly.
Until then, she’s making the most of what she has. A few pots, some secondhand chairs, a handful of flowers, and a balcony filled with late-summer visitors turned out to be enough to make her feel like a gardener again.
Sometimes a Small Garden Is Enough
The story is ultimately less about the plants themselves and more about what they gave their caretaker during a difficult period. Gardening had once been a huge part of her life, and losing access to that world left a noticeable emptiness.
Her balcony couldn’t solve everything, but it gave her something she could nurture. And when a hummingbird stopped by the coneflowers while she sat outside listening to the cicadas, that little space suddenly felt like exactly where she needed to be.
