Balcony Beginner

Hi all

I have recently moved into my first flat with a balcony (yay!) and I am looking to get some colour in there for the spring/summer months, they would need to be annual as opposed to perennial as I may not be able to take them with me if I move. Our flat gets direct sunlight up until about 2pm daily.

The space I have isnt huge, and I will probably invest in some 3ft-ish long rectangular plant pots to go aling the front of the balcony as I think this would probably make the best use of the space.

I absolutely love colour, and will probably go for pansies/cosmos to start my balcony colour collection. But I would really love some advice on what other flowers there are that are relavely short in terms of height but really colourful/unusual shapes that would be easy to care for and last until around september?

I apologise if I am explaining this in really basic terms, I am really keen to deck my balcony out in colour, but there are so many varieties of flowers/plants out there that I'm a little afraid I'll buy some and they'll die in the first month because they're not the right type!

any advice would be really really appreciated

Emma

You could try single-flowered Dahlias in tubs (early bird is a good one you can get from many garden-centres in packs of 6 or 8 for a few quid).  The bonus is that bees and hoverflies love them, they flower through to the first frosts and then you can either discard them or dig up the tubers and store them overwinter and re-use them the following year (also you can take them with you if you have to move).  If you pot up the tubers indoors in January, you can also take cuttings from the growth....more plants for free!  Marigolds are also good goers but I'd go for dahlias every time.  Incidentally you can also grow these from seed.  Plant them now and they get going really quickly.