Outdoors, Summer

3 tips for creating beautiful window boxes and planters

3 tips for creating beautiful window boxes and planters

Hey everyone! With summer almost here I thought it would be fun to share 3 tips for creating beautiful window boxes and planters. Our weather pattern this spring/summer has been super gray and rainy so our flower and vegetable garden is a few weeks from being it’s prettiest. That said I wanted to get this blog post out so you could get started on creating a pretty window box or planter if you haven’t already done so. The forecast is for sunnier days and we are all looking forward to that! I literally had to step outside between rain showers to get a few photos.

This is my third year planting a window box. The first year I planted all herbs and they went wild and grew so thick and tall I had to keep clipping them so we could see out the window! Since then I’ve switched to flowers and foliage. My plants still have lots of growing to do but you can see them starting to spill out over the window box.

Rather than building a wood box we purchased a self watering window box along with a few planters. The containers come in various sizes and are great particularly if you are trying to conserve water. They work by creating a reservoir of water at the bottom of the container. Once the plant roots grow enough to reach the reservoir you can stop watering as much. These planters also come in handy if when you travel. You can leave your plants knowing that they will water until you get back. For additional questions regarding planter boxes, 5 tips to help build the perfect planter box is a good resource to check out.

Here is what I planted last year. Sadly I was unable to get a hanging pot and lavender topiary this year. I’ll try again next year. The hanging basket kept growing all summer long and got to be huge! We really enjoyed this look.

3 tips for creating beautiful window boxes and planters

Tip 1 Start with good potting mix. Once you have a healthy base you don’t need to refill it with new soil every year. I recommend using your spade or trowel to churn up the ‘old’ dirt, plant your flowers, and add a little fresh soil on top.

Tip 2 Fertilize and then make sure to water. Most of you are familiar with Miracle-Gro. I like to fertilize every week or so during the summer months. This will help your flowers regrow so they really fill out your containers.

Tip 3 Finally, pack your containers with flowers that will work with the amount of sun/heat they will receive and then the fun part happens. Plant away! You always hear how plants need to be spaced out, I routinely ignore that and literally cram flowers in my pots. I like to have something higher in the middle and flowers that spill over the garden box. Petunias are great for this and I also like foliage. One of my favorites is silver falls (Dichondra) but ivy also works. In my box I also have alyssum, calibrachoa hybrida, and double impatiens.

In the background of this picture you see a wood structure, and Layla of course;) That’s are cedar garden box! It’s filled with baby veggies that are anxiously awaiting sunnier days. We are looking forward to a vegetable garden soon. I have a tutorial coming up sharing how we build the cedar planter box so stay tuned for that.