Or maybe how not to!
Telling the story with a whirl of photos. Squashing up everything into a neat little ball and rolling it your way.
The growing season is long gone. Everything is soggy and brown but we are still here for your houseplants and balconies. Easybee is still going strong with balcony and houseplant requests coming through even in these grim dark months.
Scroll on for some failure! Scroll on for some success!
we are all scrolling on to see what happens.
And next year we have some big plans.
2021: biggest mistakes, biggest successes:
Success: Gorgeous balcony I created in Schoneberg, the MEGA BALCONY.
The right plants in the right place create low maintenance high impact display.
Herbs and fruit bushes: sage, red currant and rosemary.
Sage holds the display together as a repeated planting theme.
Failure: see this balcony looking super dank. If I had taken care of the floor in particular and given it a lick of floor paint, it could have been so much better. The plants themselves are too small and skimpy. Not a good look.
Fix the floor of your balcony. This changes the feel of the space right away. You can paint it, strew it with reeds, add matting or those cute little wood squares from Ikea that click together. Or you can just call me. Solve it! a dark dirty floor can really distract from good plants.
SUCCESS:
And what am I most proud of for Easybee this year? of course, it's...
MEGA BALCONY!
I got thrown into the deep end for our first job, but look how she turned out!
I cannot take all the credit, I had help with the D.I.Y and had a good carpenter to build the pergola...
MEGA BALCONY went From this...
To this:
I have customers with good taste.
They did a lot of the arranging themselves.
And I am proud to help them make a real good looking home.
How did this all happen?
Working backwards....
Our Year in pictures:
November 2021:
On the 23rd November I gave a work-shop on plant propagation in the red room at Soho house. 8 people attended and were very entertained. I was nervous- not sure how much they learned but everyone had a good laugh at the soil all over my face that looked like a moustache. (I had no idea)
It was a beautiful venue,like giving a work-shop at the 'Overlook hotel.
Thank you to excellent plant purveyors:
and Deborah Choi who helped make this happen.
In November I also gave this new office on Schonhauserallee a fresh look with mature plants.The customers were a pleasure to work with and the project was finished well below budget as I sourced the plants in a 'special' way. Here are some before and after photos:
Thank you to: https://berlin-hypnose.net/ your top grade hypnotherapy service on Schonhauserallee.
October:
Every year I grow some rude shaped pumpkins.I say this as a fact without shame, humour or innuendo.October saw the return of the great pumpkin and his inescapable soupy fate:
I like big Cucurbits and I cannot lie.
September:
In September I gave this small balcony in Lichtenberg a colourful make-over using tough sedums with beautiful textures and different sizes of leaves. Sedums are a diverse family of succulent plants perfect for low maintenance situations and they look good all year round, they are perfect for late planting.
August:
In August I made some eccentric cut-and-come-again salad baskets with unusual heritage salads. I sold them for 30€ each. Will definitely do more next year with herbs and wild strawberries. These salads were so much better than anything you can buy in the supermarket and the great thing is you can harvest them up to 3 times. Simply cut with scissors and let them grow back.
July:
July was busy with the flowering of multiple balconies. MEGA BALCONY SCHONEBERG was completed and the customers were happy. Here is a picture of MEGA BALCONY under construction with an apple tree, sage and red currant bush:
And below, also from July: Completed outdoor area in Prenzlauerberg for charming family of 4. Job I'm proud of. The first picture on the left is a before photo. The next two photos are the finished space. It needed to be minimal, elegant and function as a playground for two little boys. Different needs were balanced and created a harmonious space.
June:
In June I created this edible balcony for shade, near Humboldthain. Here's a before and after:
May:
This was May and Mega Balcony was growing.
April:
April saw a big boost for Easybee- I was very lucky to be the subject of an article in EXBERLINER MAGAZINE- this exposure resulted in lots of requests!
Thank you Magic hands carpentry for your work on the pergola: https://www.facebook.com/Magic-Hands-Carpentry-Workshop-231315420253442/
And thank you EXBERLINER MAGAZINE: https://www.exberliner.com/
In April Easybee met Mega balcony. It snowed. It was the beginning...
Also in April, completed this gorgeous balcony in Neukoln. The first picture on the left is before. The last picture on the right is from July when it was madly flowering:
March:
March was cold and full of plans. MEGA BALCONY arrived out of nowhere: my first customers. Everything was bare! we made a plan. I was scared of failure...this was my first balcony job and it was huge. luckily I had great customers and excellent help.
February:
There was intense planning. How to organize a business? a totally new concept for me. I couldn't even organize my own socks. Or so I thought. I got a lot of advice. Made some flyers. They were a bit crap.
February was about promotion. About clarifying what I was offering. February was a mixture of fantasy and fear. February was about exploring how to approach people and talk about the business- I was not good at that. But I am now.
I took the leap and good things happened.
Below: this was the first plan I made- a plan for 'The Word', an event space in Kreuzberg:
January:
How it all started. Taking the first steps to make an idea into a reality- an idea suggested by a friend.
And the journey began:
I did not know what I would be offering, who I would be or how it would work. I was terrified.
Above, my own balcony last summer. Fix that floor.
Looking forward to the next leap!
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