Window boxes are the perfect solution for wanabe gardeners who lack room, time and money. Window boxes do not require much maintenance and for under a hundred dollars you can create a masterpiece.
Sprucing up a facade is just the start of the window box's talents. Its potted plantings also bring garden scenes up close and invite flowery perfumes indoors. And because window boxes are so prominently placed—and generally on public view—they claim more attention than patio pots without requiring any additional effort or expense. They're amazingly versatile, especially if you push past a mere gathering of geraniums, as pretty as those can be, for a layered mix with nuance and dimension
Thrillers, Fillers and Spillers
As with ground-level beds, light conditions will determine what you can grow. Full sun accommodates blooming annuals, while shade best suits foliage plants, like coleus and caladium. To properly show off these displays, select a box that's the same width as the window.Use sturdy brackets to attach the box to your house, and invest in a high-quality potting mix.
Arrange plants on top of the soil until you're happy with how the design looks from inside and out. Then ease them out of the nursery pots and settle.
Arrange plants on top of the soil until you're happy with how the design looks from inside and out. Then ease them out of the nursery pots and settle.
Year Round Window Boxes
With a little effort, you can keep box displays going strong all year. Regularly check the soil, daily in hot weather, and water thoroughly when it feels dry a half inch down. Since nutrients wash out quickly from containers, fertilizer is a must. Good options include fish emulsion or liquid kelp, diluted to half strength and applied every two weeks.
Switch out cool-weather plants—pansies and cyclamen, say—for heat-lovers, like marigolds, as summer arrives. And as temperatures drop, try sneaking in edibles, like lettuce, for fall and a row of dwarf conifers for winter color.
Switch out cool-weather plants—pansies and cyclamen, say—for heat-lovers, like marigolds, as summer arrives. And as temperatures drop, try sneaking in edibles, like lettuce, for fall and a row of dwarf conifers for winter color.
Spillers add Drama
Trailing plants balance upright growers while warming up walls with their soft textures. Good picks are plants with naturally vining or spreading habits.
The stems of bacopa, dichondra, and parrot's beak drape down as geranium, lobelia, 'Diamond Frost' euphorbia, and calibrachoa add welcome color.
Ivy geranium drapes over the box's edge, while the cool hues of purple verbena and wispy gaura enliven the window's crisp white trim and shutters and contrast with the yellow-flowering hedge below.
A dwarf Alberta spruce, which gives privacy to the room behind it, is offset by dwarf Hinoki cypress and a ruffle of pink petunias.
Greens and Creams
As flowering annuals go in and out of bloom, foliage plants maintain their eye-catching impact. Some, like grasses that plume in fall, change with the seasons, while others, like coleus, need flower buds pinched to keep leaves robust.
Butterfly Haven
A mass planting of caladium, rex begonia, dichondra, coleus, and plectranthus weaves a tapestry of Pollinators flock to variegated Jacob's ladder. Its foliage is a showstopper amid sweet alyssum, penstemon, bacopa, lobelia, and 'Apple Blossom' nicotiana.variegated leaves in varying sizes and shapes.
