GARDENING : Window Boxes Add Color
Window boxes are something the British whip up exceptionally well. They brim with a kaleidoscope of color: lavender lobelia, red-and-white stripped petunias, pink pelargoniums, orange geraniums, magenta china asters, and, of course, sprigs of English ivy.
Whether you live on massive acreage or in a small apartment, window box dressing gives a special kind of gardening pleasure.
The good news is that there is no magic in creating your own showcase window box. All you need is a container, soil, a small variety of flowers and some foliage imagination.
Simple containers are the most versatile; they blend with most architectural styles and don’t detract from the plants growing inside. Neutral colors--gray, beige, brown, natural wood, white--are the best complements.
Boxes are made of wood, metal, stone, fiberglass, plastic or clay.
Wood--either redwood, pine or cedar--is the “traditional” choice for window boxes. A 24-inch-by-12-inch redwood box costs about $25. Redwood resists rotting and adds a touch of country. Painted white, it offers a traditional look.
Clay boxes are romantic and whimsical. Italian terra cotta clay containers blend well with almost any floral selection. They can be bought or painted white for a dressier look. There is a new plastic window box that looks like clay.
Metal and stone boxes are more modern and sleek. Exotic chiseled stone boxes are hard to find, difficult to maneuver and expensive--but elegant. Fiberglass boxes are durable in hot and cold weather and are relatively inexpensive. One popular model sold by numerous mail-order garden-supply companies looks like white-painted wood. Fiberglass boxes are also easy to clean.
Where to put your flower boxes? Find a spot where they can slip in easily--fitting onto a windowsill or doorway ledge. If your windowsill is wide enough, a window box can simply rest upon it. Anchor the box with rocks in the back to make sure it does not slide or blow off the sill. If your window sill slopes forward, as many do, place wedges of wood under the front of the box to level it.
Few tools are required for window box gardening. You will need a cultivator to aerate the soil and scratch in granular fertilizers, a watering can, a hand sprayer for misting and feeding, pruning shears for trimming shrubs and clipping dead flowers, a small trowel for digging planting holes and a dibble for planting seeds.
Coloring your window box with flowers is where you get to be as wild or as timid as you wish. You can go neon-rainbow with bright, mixed color, or monochromatic for a serene color scheme.
If you want soft harmony, plant analogous or related color schemes, those close to one another on the artist’s color wheel, like pink and purple; red, orange and yellow; or pastels. White flowers or silver foliage can be added to lighten and brighten the effect.
A monochromatic box idea would be to set pink chrysanthemums and rose pelargoniums inside English ivy. Or purple china asters, pink and white petunias and lavender lobelia. Try different shades of lobelia, from deep purple to palest lavender with impatiens in rose and light pink amid cascading Swedish ivy.
The English cottage garden look requires more contrasting color. Let your imagination run riot with polychromatic color schemes. The appeal of window box gardening is that you can rarely make a bad choice with too much color.
Red petunias, yellow marigolds, pink pelargoniums, blue china asters, white nasturtiums, lavender lobelia, stripped sweet Williams, scarlet snapdragons--or any combination of color--gives a window box a charming “the-more-the-merrier-look.”
My favorite window box sat outside my dorm room in London--a white wood box filled with lavender, pink and red lobelia, Swedish and English ivy, scarlet impatiens, rose and pink geraniums, red wax begonias, white petunias and sweet Williams. How do I remember it so well? Some memories you carry with you like a photograph.
When making your plant choices, consider the plants’ height and width since a good mixture makes for a more pleasing box.
Dip your hand into some unusual plants. For height, experiment with lavender-blue catmints, white candytufts, wish-bone flowers (lavender flowers with deep purple markings and a yellow spot), rosy speedwell or sapphire flowers (good for front-of-window boxes). For width, try Kolomikta vine (leaves splashed with pink and white), dusty miller, silver-lace (lacy silver foliage), love-in-a-mist, snow-on-the-mountain (white-edged green leaves) or lovingstone daisy (neon-like colors).
There are three options for putting plants in window boxes. You can plant directly in the boxes, plant removable liners that fit inside the boxes, or plant in individual pots sunk into peat moss inside the boxes. Regardless of the method you use, every box and liner need drainage holes in the bottom. In stone trough containers in which you cannot drill drainage holes, put a layer of gravel in the bottom of the box to improve drainage.
Soil mixes for window boxes are the same as those for your houseplants and other outdoor containers. Start with packaged potting soil and mix it with a source of organic matter--compost that you have crumbled into small pieces or pressed through a sieve, peat moss or leaf mold. To lighten the soil’s texture, add some vermiculite, perlite or builder’s sand. A good all-purpose formula is three parts soil; two parts compost, leaf mold or peat moss; and one part vermiculite, perlite or sand. If you are growing flowers from bulbs, add some bone meal for extra phosphorus.
When planting, leave enough space between plants to allow them to grow to their full size. Many people make the mistake of crowding the roots during planting.
If you are transplanting, dig holes large enough to accommodate all the roots. Set the transplants at the same depth they were growing in their previous flat. Leave the soil level about an inch below the top of each box, to allow room for watering.
Window boxes need regular fertilizing and watering. In hot, dry weather, water once or twice a day, whenever the soil feels dry an inch or two below the surface. Make sure the soil is moistened all the way through and all the roots receive water.
Window boxes are not just for flowers. Herbs such as dill, garlic, chives, thyme, sage, basil and parsley can be grown in these rectangles. For a little lettuce crop, plant the romaine cultivar “little gem,” and small-rooted carrots such as “little finger” are successful in a box.
The grandest thing about window boxes? For the little amount of time and effort you expend on them, they’ll bring sparkle to your garden, and hours of pleasure each time you peek outside your window.
A WINDOW BOX SAMPLER
Selecting the flowers to fill a window box requires consideration of color, height, width and design scheme. A monochromatic color scheme would use flowers with similar colors, like pink chrysanthemums and rose pelargoniums. A polychromatic scheme mixes a combination of color, like red petunias, yellow marigolds, pink pelargoniums, blue china asters, white nasturtiums, lavender lobelia, stripped sweet Williams and scarlet snapdragons.
A good mixture of height and width adds to the appearance of a flower box. The rule of thumb: Plants such as pelargoniums, geraniums, china asters, snapdragons add height. Lobelia, phlox, impatiens, petunias add width and depth.
Here is a sampling of plant choices:
Ageratum: Flat, fuzzy clusters of violet-blue flowers cover this foot-tall plant, which can be used as a good filler.
Alyssum: It grows in low mounds of white, pinkish purple or dark purple flowers. Dwarf kinds are dense and stay under 4 inches.
Aster: Growing to various sizes, flowers come in white or shades of blue, red, pink, lavender or purple, mostly with yellow centers.
Begonia: Planted for texture, the multicolored foliage has saucer-size flowers and/or lacy clusters of smaller flowers.
Cabbage, flowering: It is used for its highly ornamental, highly colored leaf rosettes that look like giant peonies in deep blue green marbled and edged with white, cream, rose or purple.
Calendula: Besides familiar orange and bright yellow double, daisylike blossoms, there are more subtle shades of apricot, cream and soft yellow. The leaves are aromatic leaves and they grow one to two feet tall.
Candytuft: Low-growing mounts of narrow, deep green leaves are completely obscured by short spikes of white flowers in spring and early summer. Snowflake is an especially dense variety. A good filler among taller perennials, most grow a foot tall or less.
Catmint: Soft, gray green, undulating mounds of lavender-blue flowers grow to two feet tall.
Celosia: There are two kinds, crested cockscomb with bizarre, contorted flower heads, and plume celosia with feathery plumes. There are varieties of each that grow from 1 to 3 feet tall and both come in outrageous shades of yellow, orange, gold and crimson.
Chrysanthemum: Available in many flower forms, plant and flower sizes, they also come in a variety of colors including pink, white butter, yellow, red, orange, bronze, purple, lavender and multicolors.
Dahlia: Miniatures stay under 1 1/2 feet and offer superb shades of yellow, orange, red, pink and white.
Dusty miller: A coarse plant with distinctively cut gray leaves and pale yellow flowers, it grows to two feet tall.
Fuchsia: This popular, showy flowered plant comes in hundreds of varieties and colors. The California fuchsia spreads to form loose stands of 2-foot flower spikes splattered with red in late summer.
Geranium: Not to be confused with pelargoniums, geraniums have snowflake leaves with deep purple, bright pink or blue flowers that grow from under a foot to 2 feet tall.
Gerbera: These South African plants produce huge daisylike flowers in deep, warm shades of yellow, orange, red and pink. Clumps of dark green foliage stay under a foot tall.
Golden fleece: A very dainty daisy flower with fine, threadlike foliage and soft, chamois-colored blossoms, it never grows taller than a foot.
Impatiens: A varied group of striking bright flowers comes in a bewildering variety of colors from scarlet and deep purple to stripes or splashes of color mixes. Single-flowered kinds cover themselves neatly with a mass of flowers; doubles have attractive flowers like little rosebuds.
Love-in-a-mist: A pretty flower with thorny-looking leaves, it grows 20 inches tall, 12 inches wide.
Lobelia: Six-inch-tall plants, often with dark reddish foliage and bright blue to violet flowers, it is a good filler that contrasts nicely with summer’s many golden flowers.
Marigold: The tiniest are the 8- to 10-inch signet marigolds that have almost ferny foliage and delicate little flowers in vivid yellow, orange or crimson. The mid-sized French marigolds come in single or double flowered forms, in yellow, orange and crimson, often marked with maroon. All are neat and tidy and low-growing, 8 to 14 inches tall. The taller American or African marigolds grow 1 1/2 to 3 feet tall with the biggest flowers on sturdy stems. Most are shades of yellow or orange.
Nemesia: These foot-tall plants are covered with yellow, orange or red flowers, and just about every shade in between.
Pansy: Dark contrasting markings bloom in shades of blue, purple, yellow, maroon and apricot.
Petunia: Best grown early in the season before summer’s heat and smog descend, there are single- and double-flowered forms. Grandifloras have large flowers and multifloras have more, smaller flowers and a neater appearance. Both come in shades of pink, red, salmon, purple, white and even pale yellow. All are under a foot tall.
Portulaca: These low-spreading succulent plants have brilliant, shimmering flowers in shades of yellow, orange, red, cerise, coral and white.
Salvia: Some new introductions from South America have shocking red or deep purple flowers and grow to three or four feet.
Snapdragon: Available in an array of heights, types and colors, they grow from 6 inches tall to 3 or 4 feet, in every color but blue and some that don’t “snap.”
Speedwell: There are many kinds, and most have graceful blue spikes and grow no more than 2 feet tall.
Stock: In muted lavender, pink and white, the flowers are sweetly scented on 1- to 2-foot-tall plants with grayish foliage.
Sweet William: These foot-tall carnation relatives have a decidedly old-fashioned look, with big clusters of flowers in shades of red, rose, pink and white.
Verbena: These low-spreading plants have rounded clusters of white, pink, red or violet flowers and grow under a foot tall.
Zinnia: The brightest of summer flowers, zinnias come in many sizes, forms and colors. The newest are dwarfs, most notably the foot-tall Peter Pan series, though there are zinnias even smaller. Tall zinnias reach about two feet tall. There are giant double types (the best known), giant tetra types (dahlialike flowers), and giant cactus types (lots of narrow, pointed petals). All come in brilliant shades.
