Our little condo garden

Living in a condominium community in suburban NJ has its ups and down. While I'm less than hour from NY, 1.5 hours from Philly, and really close to a lot of wonderful birding, property and housing is WAY expensive. So, when I bought my condo in 2004, I knew there were sacrifices. One of these sacrifices is a yard. Beth and I have a small porch/deck area and a landscaped garden of various hedges put in by the real landowners. This is the first year that we're attempting to spice up the place with our own plants.

We went shopping yesterday for some plants to pot and put on the porch as well as to fill in some small places in the landscaping. We wanted to have some veggies, herbs, and some close-to-native-as-possible plants for butterflies.

Here's what we planted for food stuff in pots:
Sweet Basil
Italian Parsley
"Lemon" Thyme
Peppermint
Varieties of leaf lettuce (Mesclun, Romaine, etc.)
One big ol' indeterminate Tomato plant

For the wildlife:
Salvia (Perennial)
Jacob's Ladder
Pincushion Flower (Scabiosa) (an annual, not quite native, but not invasive)
Lantana (an annual in NJ, not native, not invasive in NJ)

We also have a few hanging baskets of petunia, fuchsia, geranium, and some other unknowns.

Our yard doesn't get a whole lot of direct sun, so we'll see how this all works out in a few months. If this works out, we'll spice it up even more next year. I want milkweed!!!