This interior designer sleeps on her balcony, where vines curl and figs ripen

Mmm, so juicy! Finally! Malla Tapio tastes a fruit ripened by her own fig tree on her balcony in Espoo, Southern Finland. She has had the tree for several years, but it had never borne fruit—until now.

“It’s pretty amazing that we’re in Finland and I have my own fig tree!” Malla says.

Next to the fig, ‘Tiny Tim’ and ‘Black Cherry’ cherry tomatoes are ripening. They fill the glazed balcony with an intense aroma.

The first tomatoes are already blushing. In previous years, the harvest has lasted right up to November.

“When the cold sets in, I bring the green trusses indoors to ripen,” Malla explains.

The cucumber, on the other hand—which usually yields a good crop—had a rough year: a spider mite infestation struck during the early-summer heat, and the plant never recovered.

Malla managed to banish the mites with an insect-killer spray before they could spread to the rest of the balcony plants. Only the pansy growing next to the cucumber got its share of the pests.

Malla loves fragrant flowers and herbs such as rosemary, lavender, and thyme. Every year sweet peas also bloom on the balcony. “Inside the glazing their scent is intoxicating. I sit down, breathe in the aromas, and watch the swallows fly past,” Malla says.

The common fig is producing its first crop.

The largest pots are plastic so they won’t be too heavy. “The pots don’t have drainage holes, but I’ve channeled them well with expanded clay pellets and landscape fabric, so water shouldn’t pool in them,” Malla says. She uses regular garden soil.

On hot summer mornings it’s pleasantly cool on the balcony. Listening to birdsong and breathing in the scent of the plants, it’s lovely to sit down with a morning coffee.

At the hottest time of day, the towering tomatoes sift the light more kindly and provide shelter from the glare.

During heatwaves, Malla even sleeps on the balcony’s summer bed. On bright moonlit nights she opens one of the windows and lies there gazing at the starry sky.

In late summer Malla carries out a large table and hosts a crayfish party for her friends on the balcony.

“The balcony is my multipurpose space. I eat breakfast and dinner there, relax, cool down after the sauna, and paint with oils. But the plants create the atmosphere; without their colors and scents this would be a completely different place.”

Pelargoniums thrive on the sun-drenched balcony. Malla hopes to keep an unusual orange-tinged variety alive through the winter.

Malla feeds bloodleaf and other flowering plants with liquid fertilizer. Tomatoes and cucumbers get slow-release pellets meant for vegetables.

Placing plants at different heights creates a feeling of abundance. Malla groups them according to their light needs. On a kitchen stool sits the fig, while the colorful-leafed plants are coleus. Pelargoniums, dahlias, and pansies delight with their blooms.

I’m a color person and right now I like unconventional contrasts, Malla explains.

“My balcony has pink and peach, orange and violet. I like to switch up the colors, and I have loads of throws and cushions that add even more color alongside the flowers. The building dates from 1974, and I think both muted and bright ’70s shades suit it perfectly.”

When it comes to plants, Malla is fascinated by different color variants, and she often chooses a plant for its hue. One summer she had a clear, pale-violet pelargonium she has never found again. Now an unusual orange pelargonium is blooming on the balcony, and Malla plans to overwinter it indoors.

“I’m going to take cuttings from it later in the summer, because they’re hard to root in late autumn. If it looks like the pelargonium won’t make it to next summer, I’ll take even more cuttings to root,” she says.

Malla usually doesn’t care for bright red, but she became smitten with verbena this year.

Malla starts rooting coleus and pelargonium cuttings indoors at the beginning of autumn—or whenever a stem happens to break. This way the plants survive until the next summer.

The zinnia grown from seed has become tall and sturdy. “It seems to be happy here,” Malla says.

On the glazed west-facing balcony the temperature stays about five degrees warmer than outside in autumn and winter. In mild winters, Malla has successfully overwintered many plants there in Styrofoam pots. A Japanese maple, a thuja, and climbers such as clematis and flame vine have all survived the winter.

English ivy also overwinters well when Malla moves the pots down to the floor for protection.

Malla brings the fig, olive, and lemon trees indoors before the first frost.

“I don’t really have a suitably cool space for them, so they don’t do very well indoors. My harvest ends up being rather pricey because I often have to buy new plants, but I get so much joy from watching them grow,” Malla notes.

Malla grows her cucumbers and tomatoes from seed. In spring she carries the seedlings out to the balcony on large trays during the day and back inside at night.

From the balcony—right beside the pothos—there’s also a door to the sauna, so it’s easy to step outside to cool down after a steam.

Malla loves hydrangeas. On the sun-baked balcony they have to stay close to the floor so the direct sun won’t scorch them. Sometimes Malla even props an umbrella in a large pot to shade the hydrangea and herbs.

Rosemary spreads its aromatic scent across the balcony.

One winter Malla tried to overwinter a lemon tree entirely on the balcony under a layer of garden fleece. It wasn’t enough, and the tree died.

The Japanese maple that had survived two winters also met a sad fate last spring.

“The sun starts warming the balcony as early as March, and the plants begin to put out new shoots too soon. Then we got a cold snap, and the Japanese maple that had already started growing didn’t make it,” Malla laments.

Next, Malla would like to try growing grapes on her balcony. Next year she plans to replace the soil in her large pots—instead of merely loosening the top layer—and that will be the perfect time to plant the vines.

“I believe grapevines will thrive here. It would be wonderful if they grew all the way up to the ceiling and created an arching feel.”

Working as an interior designer, Malla loves to play with color. Deep violet, fuchsia, and orange tones usually dominate her flowers and textiles.