In the open garden, heaths and heathers must be tightly massed and viewed from something of a distance so that their softly coloured flowers and vivid foliage create a moorland vista in miniature.

In the window box or in any container that offers a close-up view, heathers take on a quite different but nonetheless attractive appearance. The flowers are small and bell-shaped, in pinks and purple and white, while the foliage, which can vary according to the time of year, ranges from yellow to green to bronze to grey. Read the rest of this entry »

There is something very evocative about scents drifting into the house from the garden on a warm summer evening. Philadelphus, the mock orange, usually still called syringa, and lilac, which really is syringa, are two of the most potent scented plants that you could contain in a large tub and station near a door or window. But it would take a few years for a young plant to reach a size sufficient to support a quantity of flowers and so the best subjects for a scented window box are likely to come from the long list of annual plants. These grow fast and will flower their heads off if conditions are right. Read the rest of this entry »