Small-scale gardening

If you aspire to a bountiful and beautiful Martha Stewart-style vegetable garden, don’t be daunted by the size of your balcony. Maximise on container gardening and then eat your own, says Jane Drew.

Many of us have space limitations that shrink our horticultural dreams. But with a little planning and positive thinking you can enjoy all the benefits of gardening, even from a balcony.

Aesthetically speaking, anything green (or flowered) will improve the outlook from your apartment, so choose a big pot with enough space for a variety of flower colours and leaf textures. A top diameter of 18 or 24 inches is ideal. Large container gardens are too heavy to move easily, so put your planter in position before you add potting soil.

Whatever you decide to plant, keep in mind that all the seedlings will be sharing the same soil and space within the container. The grouped plants should all require the same amount of water and light.

In aiming for eye-pleasing contrast, don't be afraid to mix vegetable plants and decorative flowers. Think of it as flower arranging - on a large scale - and combine a variety of species of various different heights within one pot. Alternatively, cluster planters together in the corners of a balcony, with low-lying shrubs place front and centre, medium-height plants just behind and climbers at the back.

As a general rule, plant pots look good arranged in the corner of a balcony in groups of three. Terracotta pots will always show off foliage to advantage but for a real Hong Kong-feel, opt for blue-and-white ‘Ming-style’ china.

When choosing plants, bear in mind that the Hong Kong summer can play havoc with the most carefully tended container garden. With humidity loaded air and days bringing anything from light showers to formidable black rain, your pots will flood fast. Now’s the time to abandon Mediterranean dreams and exchange that sweetly scented lavender for rather more hardy tropical plants.

Of course with so much water, bombarding your container garden daily, the first question is which soil to use. You might think that easy draining soil is the answer but in Hong Kong, it’s advisable to pot plants in a clay-based soil, mixed with organic substrates. This is because clay binds nutrients to its surface, releasing them slowly over time, without letting them be washed away.

An ‘edible’ garden is a great option in any clime, and the many tropical herbs and plants available locally also bring aesthetic value to a terrace or balcony.

Lemon grass, although not the most beautiful of plants, is easy to grow and makes for nice background foliage. Coriander, which can grow to about 50 centimetres, produces white flowers tinged with mauve in summer. It benefits from morning sun and dappled afternoon shade; small stakes will prevent the bushes from being blown over. Galangal, or Thai Ginger, grows as a large clump of narrow leaves up to 2 metres tall. It flourishes in a warm, shaded position and bears small white flowers on branched heads, followed by red fruits.

Assuming you keep the soil well drained, both curry leaves and ginger also grow well locally. The curry tree can grow to around 6 metres in warm, humid climates, but it can also be grown successfully in a pot as a much smaller plant. The pungently flavoured, glossy leaves are borne on opposite, slender branchlets and have an unusual pendant habit. White, perfumed flowers in summer are followed by blackish berries. Ginger, which grows to around 1 metre, and produces a scaly cream and purple flower spike, is a great visual (and culinary) accompaniment to the curry tree.

Note that chillies, while adding a gorgeous splash of red to a container garden, do not survive Hong Kong’s summer rains.

Surprisingly, one of the easier herb plants to grow locally is good old, European rosemary. Though it will never flower, it produces substantial shrubs that will add spice to countless racks of lamb. Spearmint and peppermint also grow well in Hong Kong. They go a bit leggy and slow down around Christmas but hard pruning throughout the summer encourages new growth.

If you’re a fan of basil, try the Basilicum universe of Southeast Asian varieties. As with so many things, Asian versions have a wider variety of flavours, aromas, sizes and shapes. Flavours vary from pungent liquorish and ‘classic Mediterranean’, through to zesty Indonesian Kemangie that can be used not only with fish and poultry but also to make herbal teas.

Shrubby looking, East India Basil can reach 8 feet tall, and you don’t have to reseed it every 12 months to facilitate a fresh crop. Camphor Basil, from Kenya, is also ideally suited to the Hong Kong climate and can be used in Indian cooking to flavour rice, dhal and vegetables.

Tropical basils are incredibly easy to grow: tiny seedlings appear within weeks and replanting them, three in a pot, speeds up their growth. You can expect to harvest a first crop five to six weeks from the time of germination.

If you want to fill your outdoor space with fruits, local fig trees will be a great discovery. You can expect a small plant, picked up at Mongkok Flower Market, to produce a crop of 20 to 30 figs twice a year - within a year. The autumn crop is tastier than the summer one, as at the time of harvesting there is less humidity, rain and sun. Neighbourhood birds are quick to detect a ready-to-eat fig, so be sure to pick your crop as soon as it is ripe.

Nothing could be easier too, than growing your own dragon fruits. You can expect a seed to germinate within a week. This cactus from Central America, with its beautifully scented white flowers, looks fabulous climbing up any balcony wall.

So why not grow a green thumb? Picture the scene: you’re serving up a delicious pasta, flavoured with home-made pesto, on a balcony lined with exotic greenery. At the end of the evening you pass round a bowl of home-grown figs. Welcome to the world of al fresco dining - Hong Kong style.