It may be getting past traditional planting season for gardens, but it’s not too late to still plant flowers and vegetables in your window boxes. Instead of planting seeds though, you will need to use pre-grown starts or even full plants that can be found at your local nursery or store that has a garden center.
What to Plant in Your Window Box?
When you think of garden window boxes, you would think that you could plant anything in them just like you would a planting pot. However, there are two main things you need to remember when you choose what to plant in a window box.
First, the plant may fit now, but will it still fit when it has reached full size? Most flowers and small vegetable plants will fit fine, and there are also others that will adapt if they grow too big. Flowers like wave petunias grow bigger than window boxes, but they grow down over the side perfectly fine. But vegetable plants like cabbage would have hardly any room at all to be able to grow because of how wide they get.
Second, you can’t plant a shade plant in a window box that is in the sun all day, and vice versa.
So when you are choosing what plants to plant in your window box pay attention to the information that comes with the plant when your purchase it. This information will tell you how much sun the plant needs to be able to grow and also how tall and wide the plant will get once fully grown.
Without taking these two factors into account you may not get too far in the season before you have dead plants on your hand.
What to do Before You Plant Your Window Box Garden
Before you plant anything in your window box garden there are a couple of things you will need to do beforehand. First, clean your windows and your screens. There are no plants in the way yet, and you don’t want to be draining window cleaner into the soil of any veggies you may plant.
Second, repaint or re-stain your window box now if it needs it. Again, there are no plants in the way so it is easier to do it now.
Finally, put fresh soil in your window box or add nutrients to the current soil. Old soil that was used the year before will not have enough nutrients left to give you really strong and healthy plants this year.
Once everything is ready and you have picked out your plants, get them planted and enjoy the additional greenery and color on your house from your window garden box for the summer.
