Top Secrets of Winning Window Boxes

Top Secrets of Winning Window Boxes

Even the most accomplished container gardeners are impressed when they encounter a full, lush, well-designed window box. Why? Because anyone who has planted and cared for one knows that a window box presents certain challenges. First, there’s that odd shape to deal with. Usually long and narrow, window boxes seem to inhibit even the most daring designers, who inevitably fall back on a row of geraniums or a few cell packs of pansies. Maintenance is another issue: watering without spattering the house, the windows or passersby; deadheading, and managing to keep the show going despite a small growing area. These are all hurdles, but surmountable ones.

Before buying any plants—or even the container—decide where your window box will be placed. Keep in mind that those sitting on a window ledge will obscure part of the view, more so as the plants fill out. This is desirable if you’re trying to obliterate an offending view, but less so if you want to see beyond the box to the rest of your garden. A box mounted below a window is ideal but requires non-gardening-related skills such as drilling and measuring. Select a location where watering will not damage nearby surfaces (e.g., not above a dining table or wicker chair).

Tools and Materials

Window box

Preparing blend for holders

Water source and watering can

Plants with alluring blossoms and foliage

Blooming plant compost, water-solvent

Design Principles

Blend plants in with trailing, spiky upstanding, and “fleecy” development propensities, just as enormous, medium, and little leaves. Pick a shading plan or shading blends that supplement your home or scene. Red, yellow, orange, splendid pink, and white look great from a separation, while blue, purple, and dim green show best at short proximity.

Add potting mix

Buy a sterile preparing blend containing peat, perlite, and different fixings that improve seepage, air circulation, fruitfulness, and water-holding limit. Consider utilizing a water-retaining polymer to diminish watering recurrence. Fill your window box about half full with the preparing blend, and add water to dampen the blend if it’s dry. Try not to utilize standard nursery soil.

Include the plants

Plan to separate plants around 2 to 5 creeps in the case, contingent upon their development size. Slip plants out of their pots without pulling on the stems and delicately unravel any orbiting roots. Set the tallest plants, for example, geraniums, in the rear of the container. Let the trailing plants, for example, lobelia, hang over the front and sides. Fill in with the cushy plants, for example, pansies or impatiens. Occupy the spaces between plants with soil blend, tapping tenderly. Water altogether to settle the dirt.

Keep up the plants

Window boxes require visit watering – regularly every day in a blistering, dry climate. Douse the dirt totally at each watering. Utilize a water-solvent blossoming plant compost broke up at one-quarter quality once every week or as per bundle directions. Trim dead blossoms and messy development and supplant plants that die or look ratty. Evacuate a few plants if the container turns out to be excessively packed or requires watering too oftentimes.

Choose your Container with Care

Next, choose your container, keeping proportion in mind. A box sitting atop a window ledge should almost fill its length: too short and it will look skimpy. The same goes for a box hanging below a window. If space allows, it could even extend beyond the width of a window for a more generous look. Naturally, the deeper the container, the more space there is for roots to spread out and for water retention, but larger boxes are typically heavier, too. Before installing, determine how much weight your wall and the hanging brackets will tolerate when the soil is fully saturated. Check the packaging with the hanging brackets; sometimes a maximum weight load is provided. Fill one of the boxes with soil, water it well and lift it (or weigh it on a bathroom scale). Then, estimate if you need more than two brackets or sturdier ones.

Look for practical materials that suit the style of your house. Those commonly used include plastic, metal, and wood, and each has its merits and drawbacks.

Plastic is lightweight and versatile, but not always the most aesthetically pleasing option (dark-colored plastic can heat up in the sun, which may cause plant roots to cook). However, if a plastic window box is disguised with trailing plants, both problems are solved.

Metal is lightweight and attractive but, like plastic, offers little in the way of insulation for plants. The relaxed style of a moss-lined wire basket suits cottages and informal settings. Unfortunately, it can be prone to drying out. Add a sheet of clear plastic between the moss and soil to slow evaporation (punch a few holes in the bottom to allow any excess water to drain away). A moss-lined basket is also relatively lightweight and easy to hang. Long, narrow willow baskets (such as those used to serve bread) are another option. These don’t require moss, just a plastic liner to hold soil.

Custom-made wooden window boxes can be a costly alternative, but they are certainly beautiful additions to a home’s facade. Wood offers good insulating properties, can be made to any size and can be enhanced with trim, molding, and paint to match your house. For ease of planting in wooden boxes that are permanently mounted below a window, first, create your arrangement in a rigid plastic liner, then drop it inside the box. Make sure the top rim of the liner sits level (or slightly below) the top of the box. (A liner also prevents damp soil from coming in contact with the wood.) In winter, fill wooden boxes with arrangements of berried branches and evergreen boughs.

Care & Maintenance for Window Boxes

Whatever type of window box you use, make sure excess water will easily drain away. A 90-centimeter-long box needs two or three drainage holes. Place squares of fiberglass screening (the kind sold in the screen door and window repair kits) or some other porous material over the holes before filling the box with soil. Do not use pot shards or gravel, which take up valuable space and do nothing to improve the drainage.