Planting Guide: Window Boxes

May is here, and our annuals are coming out of our greenhouses every day! It’s time to start planning your window box and container designs. This blog post will guide you in planting and maintaining your window boxes throughout the summer. Any questions? Call us! We’re available 7 days a week to help you will all your planting needs.

Planting Window Boxes

1. Empty your window boxes.

If you still have soil from last year in your window boxes, dispose of it. It’s always important to start with fresh potting soil. Miracle Gro or Espoma are good choices.

2. Plan your design.

It always helps to plot out your designs before you buy the plant material. That way, you know what you’re planting and where it’s going. At your local garden center, you can test out color combinations by mixing and arranging the potted plants. Typically window boxes have a thriller, a filler, and a spiller – that is, three types of plants that each fulfill a role in containers. Thrillers are tall, such as geraniums or angelonia, and are placed in the back of the box. Fillers are fluffier plants like pansies and petunias that fill in gaps between the thrillers and spillers. Spillers are trailing plants that are planted in the front of the box and allowed to hang over the edge, “spilling” out of the box. Common spillers are lobularia and lobelia.

3. Plant your boxes.

Once you have all your plant material, it’s time to plant! Plan to set each plant anywhere from 2 to 5 inches apart, depending on the mature size of the plant. Set the tallest plants in the back of the box, let trailing plants hang over the edge, and plant fillers in the empty spaces between. Add any needed soil in between plants, and then water thoroughly to set the soil.

4. Maintain your boxes.

Window boxes and containers require frequent watering. Since they don’t retain water as well as the ground, it’s important to keep containers and window boxes well watered to keep your flowers at their best. Nunan’s waters its product at least twice a day, sometimes more! Fertilize your plants every two weeks to give them added nutrients. A water-soluble fertilizer like Miracle Gro will work.