In the open garden autumn is a time of cutting down, tidying up and battening down the hatches against the onslaught of winter. In the more restricted garden on the window sill there is a little more scope for planting, to provide interest and perhaps colour for the grey days to follow. It is the greyness of the days, and hence the lack of light, rather than the cold that makes the late autumn and winter such a dead season as far as flowers are concerned.

For early autumn you must have dahlias. Their paint-box colours are quietened by the softer light of autumn and dahlia blooms laced with cobwebs and beaded with dew are, for me, a final confirmation that summer is truly over. Read the rest of this entry »

Window boxes are often impulse acquisitions. You are halted in your tracks by a wonderful display of bedding plants and there is nothing for it, you must have some. No garden? Never mind, there is room for a few window boxes….

Such impulses can be the beginning of a long and enjoyable acquaintanceship with window box gardening. They can also be the reason behind the starved and unhappy specimens you sometimes see as the summer draws on, the unwanted kittens of window box gardening that you cannot give away and that certainly don’t seem destined for a death by drowning. If your first boxes are impulse buys, or if you know only too well that you are one of those people whose early enthusiasm is liable to wane, then hold your horses for a moment and plan. Read the rest of this entry »