Come hang out in my indoor jungle

595

Couple Living
3 br
Condo
~1,100 sqft
Coastal Living

Welcome welcome! This is actually my favourite but also the hottest place in our home for about 10 months a year because we get a good amount of morning sun. It's a place I will come and spend some time on the Airmocks during a busy work day during WFH and I really find it very therapeutic to tend to my plants. Our balcony is about 5.2m long, so half of the space is dedicated to all my plants. The other half is our laundry drying space.
This is a photo of the balcony before we moved in. The amount of sunshine that the balcony gets everyday was what sold me this place in the beginning. I can never get such good direct sun in our previous place so many of my plants couldn't survive. Plus being near the pool also helps in increasing the humidity of the balcony which is what most aroid plants need to thrive.
I got this hanging pole clothes rack from Shopee to make use of my air space to hang more plants as we have a 3m high ceiling. Will not recommend this seller as the rack was rather flimsy probably cos' it is cheap and it took me a while to make it stable enough to hang my plants. Most of the macrame hangers in my balcony are also handmade by my sis-in-law. Over here I put the smaller plants as well as my flowering Queen of the Night plant which loves the evening sun that shines at this corner. I also stick Sustee water meters into most of my plants so as to know when it is time to water them.
Placement of the plants according to their light requirements is very important for their survival. Plants need light for photosynthesis (food for them). For plants which require 5 - 6 hours of direct sun like bonsai, morning sun will be good for them so an east facing window is best. For aroids like Monsteras, they only need medium to low light. So they do well indoors near a window or in a shaded area in a balcony. Too much sunlight will cause leaf burn. The popular Everfresh which a lot of home owners have nowadays require a lot of sun so they don't do well indoors. Currently my tallest Everfresh tree is growing taller and bushier after I relocated it from my living room to the balcony (from 1.4m to 2m tall!). A happy plant will tell you when its happy, for eg. keeps flowering and showing new growth.
It is always good to repot your plants when you notice that that it gets dry very quickly after watering and when the plant gets root bound. This happens a lot to Aroids which tends to grow a lot of roots very quickly. I get my plants directly from nurseries and sometimes at wet markets instead of buying from local plant shops as I don't believe in paying for a mark-up for a same plant I can get from a local nursery just cos' it is potted in a nice minimalist pot (which can also be easily found on Taobao). And sometimes local nurseries have even more variety for you to choose from. My favourite nursery right now has to be Bedok Garden. They bring in a lot of interesting plants from Japan quite regularly, such as different species of lavender, eucalyptus, bonsai and other exotic plants. Don't bother going to the newly opened 11-storey Far East Flora in Clementi. It's very crowded and the plant offerings there are very meh.
My Pink Princess says hi :)
At night, our solar-powered lights will turn on to create some mood lighting in the balcony. It is also very cooling and quiet at night so it is nice to unwind here with a glass of wine.
Bought this solar powered lighted dandelions from Shopee for fun and so happy that it works!
This STRALA LED lantern from IKEA is such a good buy but it is a seasonal item so I'm not sure if IKEA will bring it back for this year's Christmas collection. It is battery operated and has an inbuilt timer to light up for 6 hours daily from the time it is first turned on.
Another useful solar powered gadget in my balcony has to be this mosquito killer trap to kill mozzies and flies. So far it has been doing a great job at keeping mozzies at bay.
We also installed Zipscreen in the balcony which we will bring down whenever there's super heavy rain. We're also able to use Google Home to control and program the Zipscreen to close at night and open in the morning to let light in for the plants whenever we're travelling. When we're home, we like to leave it open so that we and our plants can enjoy the natural breeze. Here's one of the rare blooms from our diva Queen of the Night, and this plant has grown so much from a small cutting which I received a few years ago to what it is today.