Bring Your Home Out of the Shadows
Bring Your Home Out of the Shadows
There are several benefits to adding a window box flower garden to your shady landscape. Although you may initially feel disappointment at the inability to grow such window box favorites as petunias and verbena, there are a number of flowers that would scorch and wither away in a sunny container. Your shady window box won’t dry out as fast as one in full sun. A vibrant window box garden will brighten up a façade that may seem dark or unwelcoming.
This smart planting combination uses perennials like coral bells and annuals like the cobalt blue trailing flowers of lobelia. Lobelia tends to peter out in hot weather, so replace it with a summer annual like impatiens in June.
Begonias Thrive in Many Situations
The begonia is a versatile flower, both in appearance and in performance. You are probably familiar with the wax begonia, semperflorans, sold in many home improvement stores in shades of white, red, and pink. Tuberous begonias are beloved for their rose-like appearance. Dragon wing and angel wing begonias have foliage as showy as their flowers. Begonias are bothered by few pests, can grow in sun or shade, and can survive moderate drought.
Extravagant, or Just Unorthodox?
Would you ever consider placing something as special as a blooming orchid in a window box? Actually, a window box display is an excellent way to highlight several orchids that are in bloom at the same time. Orchids benefit from living outdoors at least part of the year, basking in the refreshing breezes and natural humidity of the landscape. The ideal light is bright filtered shade. Of course, you should only place your orchids in outdoor window boxes if the temperatures are suitable, usually between 50-85 degrees F.
Keep the orchids in their permanent pots, and nestle the pots between greenery you plant in the window box as a filler, such as ivy.
Cool Weather Classics
As soon as the first spring thaw occurs, I rush to the nursery for a flat of pansies for my window box. There is no better beacon of spring. If you buy transplant sized plugs in six pack cells, plant them very close together in the window box. As the season progresses, they will explode up, out, and downward from the container, turning their faces toward the sunshine for two to three months. Memorial Day is the turning point of the seasons in my region, when tomatoes go into the ground and I pull the pansies that are beginning to get lanky, and replace with warm weather annuals.
I love mophead and lacecap hydrangeas in all colors ranging from green to white or pink, but let’s admit it, a vivid blue hydrangea blossom is the holy grail for many hydrangea aficionados. The macrophylla hydrangeas will deliver blue blooms for your shady window box under the right soil pH conditions. You must add an aluminum sulfate solution and bring the pH to an acidic level of 5.5 or lower to achieve blue, rather than pink blooms.
A fertilizer containing iron may also be necessary for hydrangeas growing in window boxes.
The primrose hasn’t caught on in America as much as in Europe, but these perennial spring flowers can brighten your window box for three to four weeks in early spring. Primroses prefer partial shade, but they can stand full sun in cool summer areas. They are bright enough to stand alone, or you can combine them with other petite spring flowers that won’t overwhelm the primrose’s small stature, like sweet alyssum.
There are several benefits to adding a window box flower garden to your shady landscape. Although you may initially feel disappointment at the inability to grow such window box favorites as petunias and verbena, there are a number of flowers that would scorch and wither away in a sunny container. Your shady window box won’t dry out as fast as one in full sun. A vibrant window box garden will brighten up a façade that may seem dark or unwelcoming.
This smart planting combination uses perennials like coral bells and annuals like the cobalt blue trailing flowers of lobelia. Lobelia tends to peter out in hot weather, so replace it with a summer annual like impatiens in June.
Begonias Thrive in Many Situations
The begonia is a versatile flower, both in appearance and in performance. You are probably familiar with the wax begonia, semperflorans, sold in many home improvement stores in shades of white, red, and pink. Tuberous begonias are beloved for their rose-like appearance. Dragon wing and angel wing begonias have foliage as showy as their flowers. Begonias are bothered by few pests, can grow in sun or shade, and can survive moderate drought.
Extravagant, or Just Unorthodox?
Would you ever consider placing something as special as a blooming orchid in a window box? Actually, a window box display is an excellent way to highlight several orchids that are in bloom at the same time. Orchids benefit from living outdoors at least part of the year, basking in the refreshing breezes and natural humidity of the landscape. The ideal light is bright filtered shade. Of course, you should only place your orchids in outdoor window boxes if the temperatures are suitable, usually between 50-85 degrees F.
Keep the orchids in their permanent pots, and nestle the pots between greenery you plant in the window box as a filler, such as ivy.
Cool Weather Classics
As soon as the first spring thaw occurs, I rush to the nursery for a flat of pansies for my window box. There is no better beacon of spring. If you buy transplant sized plugs in six pack cells, plant them very close together in the window box. As the season progresses, they will explode up, out, and downward from the container, turning their faces toward the sunshine for two to three months. Memorial Day is the turning point of the seasons in my region, when tomatoes go into the ground and I pull the pansies that are beginning to get lanky, and replace with warm weather annuals.
I love mophead and lacecap hydrangeas in all colors ranging from green to white or pink, but let’s admit it, a vivid blue hydrangea blossom is the holy grail for many hydrangea aficionados. The macrophylla hydrangeas will deliver blue blooms for your shady window box under the right soil pH conditions. You must add an aluminum sulfate solution and bring the pH to an acidic level of 5.5 or lower to achieve blue, rather than pink blooms.
A fertilizer containing iron may also be necessary for hydrangeas growing in window boxes.
The primrose hasn’t caught on in America as much as in Europe, but these perennial spring flowers can brighten your window box for three to four weeks in early spring. Primroses prefer partial shade, but they can stand full sun in cool summer areas. They are bright enough to stand alone, or you can combine them with other petite spring flowers that won’t overwhelm the primrose’s small stature, like sweet alyssum.
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