Window boxes can be difficult to maintain once the weather cools off, but with the right flowers and filler, you can wow visitors to your home all season long!
I spotted this one below on one of my walks.
A simple but colorful ornamental kale is planted in the center, surrounded by bright gourds and multicolored corn. A few strands of vinca trail over the sides to give dimension and softness to the box. And to bring it all together, a raffia bow puts the finishing touch on the harvest theme!
When you’re picking out your plants, one simple phrase should be the key to your planter or window box: “fillers, spillers and thrillers.”
- Fillers: Leafy greens will fill the space and complete the look
- Spillers: Flowers like Creeping Jenny or ivy flow over the sides of the container
- Thrillers: These plants offer the “wow” factor. Pops of color will draw the visitor’s eye
Fill a window box with these easy and budget-friendly items for a little something different this fall.
Cabbage and Kale
Explore the many varieties of ornamental cabbage and kale at your local garden center. They’ll stay pretty well into winter and will even get more colorful after a few chilly nights.
Pick kales and cabbages with red and green tones. Then in December, you can simply replace the gourds with greenery and berries for the holidays.
Harvest Vegetables
For the harvest veggies, try your local farmer’s market or pumpkin patch (or even the grocery store).
Add a sheaf of cornstalks and seasonal gourds for height and depth to your window box. For a perennial treat, pick up gourds made of plastic or resin to reuse next year!
Spillers
Spillers, also known as trailing plants, soften hard edges and vertically add green to a window box.
Plant periwinkle (vinca), ivy, or creeping euonymus around the edge of your fall flower box.
Colorful Blooms
For a larger box, tuck in a few asters or mums for a burst of blooms.
Mums are versatile and come in a variety of colors, from yellows to reds to pinks.
It’s best to plant mums in cool weather, as they usually bloom in the late summer/fall and again in spring if they’ve wintered over.
Dried Flowers
As you clean up your perennial garden, save some dried cuttings for your window boxes.
Yarrow, sedum, black-eyed Susans and crape myrtle all have an interesting texture and seed heads.
