Belief of Suspension

Today I set up the third and final level of my patio garden. Last night I was thinking about how feasible it would be to suspend some ivy or other greenery. Then a couple of things happened.

First, after living here for several months, I finally noticed that there were three small hooks set into the ceiling above the railing. A previous tenant had saved me a little money/labor.

Second, I remembered that tomato plants are vines, ones we normally directionally discipline with stakes and cages.

So I picked up three hanging planter containers, more soil and one more plant -- a Quinalt variety strawberry. The Quinalt is supposed to be an everbearing that grows rootless runners. Joining the strawberry in suspension are the two roma tomato plants that were sharing the ground containers with Impatiens. I'm hoping that I'll be able to look outside my window at dangling fruit later in the summer. Since they're suspended in the air, I shouldn't need to stake any of these plants, nor worry about any pests having easy access to them from the ground.

The big wildcard remains the sunshine. I like my apartment's northeast exposure for it's potential to keep my air-conditioning needs to a minimum. But less than half a day of sunshine could hold back all the fruit-bearing plants. Ah, the suspense . . . what will happen to our plant-agonists?

The picture in this post was taken from the stairwell landing, looking down on my plants.