Meteorologist Jeff Ranieri

If you remember, a few weeks ago I visited Martha Stewart's team to get tips on planting for the Spring / Summer. Around the same time I also planted new flowers in my flower boxes. I thought I would share with you the progress.

The petunias are doing great and have grown tremendously. They really tend to love the warmer days as long as I remember to water them! They have gotten so long they have actually started to climb downwards. As in past Spring/Summer weather, they tend to do very well. The only bump came a couple weeks ago when the flower box started to get heavy after a rain and I had to resecure the box to the rail. This was an easy fix with a few plastic pull tie strips.

As for the Gerber Daisies... I had a different outcome. While I was hoping to have many flowers from the two plants, the Gerber Daisies did not last. I took a quick trip out of town for the start of the hurricane season and two of our first 90 degree days fried the plants. I tried saving them and propped the plants up with a stick but it was too late.

After pulling them up I had tons of options. I ended up replanting something entirely different. I went with a green non-flowering potato vine plant. It has great color and grows very quickly. I broke the potato vine plant up with two contrasting purple versions. I even like it better now that I have one flower box that is bursting with color and the other is much more balancing and calm. So far so good!

While I faced some casualties near the start, I think the new plants are a much better option and will do better with hot days. The benefits of the flowers so far have been great. It's like reclaiming new space in your apartment and in NYC that is very valuable. I can tell you that I rarely ever pull the curtains together in the living room as I always like to look out at the flowers through my living room window. It's also a great reminder of when they may be thirsty! The only people that may have issue with the new blooms and greenery are the occasional people that get spritzed with water as I spray the leaves down in the morning -- sorry, my street neighbors :-)