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I am a New York City indoor gardener (Zone 6) who has been pushing the 
envelope beyond the usual house plants for about 3 years now. My 
gardening skills were developed outdoors in New Zealand, which doesn't 
help much when faced with a big open loft that is heated in winter by one 
of those ceiling mounted gas blowers. I have great light (east, west and 
north) which feeds my exhausting ambitions. There is also a east facing 
small balcony (with a 4ft. wall) that I plant in summer. 

This year I replaced the usual spider plants, geraniums etc with a 
planned garden that was to be romantic and fragrant. This is 5 flight 
walk up, the body is not young, but the plan that was hatched in the dark 
days of February was too compelling. Those catalogs!  

Successes are 3 window boxes on the floor with morning glory and moon 
flowers climbing over the wall (I started indoors from seeds back in 
April and they are gloriously at their peak right now).  Less successful 
are the night flowering stock I sowed as companions in the window boxes; 
they were slow to get going and have yet to flower. I covered the soil 
with moss to keep all roots cool and it seemed to help but not too much. 
Too hot ? does anyone know ?  
The building wall was supposed to be covered with sweet peas climbing and 
perfuming the air. Ha! The seeds were Shepherd's heirloom and sprouted 
healthily in 3 more window boxes. After a month on the balcony they 
started turning white from the ground up; like bleached bones they are 
still clinging to the trellis. What happened ? too hot again ? should I 
plant later and put them out for a late August/September display ? or do 
you forget about sweet peas in New York ? never is a hard word for me to 
accept. 
I planted 3 roses -1 miniature, 1 bush, and a climber. They are treasures 
that I want to keep going through winter.  The balcony is too small for 
big planters, so I have 2 alternatives; The south end of the loft which 
is isolated from heating in winter and gets late day sun, or the basement 
which is nicely chilly, but has no light. What to do ? I need to 
understand a lot more about overwintering. Is there someone who can 
advise me ? 
Thank you, Naomi Dodds
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