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| Garden Layout - Plants - Window Boxes
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| Having a small garden means that I'm always on the lookout for ways of increasing my growing space, and one of the best 'additions' has to be the window boxes, which provide me with yeear round colour, and allow me to bring the garden right up to the house. I have separate summer and winter boxes. The winter ones are replaced in May by the summer boxes, which then last until the first frosts of October or even into early November.The planting medium differs for each box. The summer versions are filled with a mixture of 75% multi-purpose compost with 25% vermiculite and water retention cystals; winter boxes are filled with a mix of 75% JI2 with 25% vermiculite, as bulbs seem to do better in this heavier mixture. |
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| This is the summer '99 window box outside my study. It's a trough, 1.2m long, 150mm wide and 150mm deep filled with the summer planting mixture. It's been planted up with 2 varieties of ivy-leaf pelargoniums, namely the red 'Fischer' and the white-with pale pink 'Ville de Dresden' and with Purple Vein Surfinias. This box was prepared during April, positioned in May, and by July, when this picture was taken, it was in full bloom and a woderful sight, either from the garden or from my study. See the Pelargoniums page and the Surfinias page for more details on individual plants. |
 Study Window Box |
 Bathroom Window Box |
This box is the summer '99 box outside the bathroom window. Agains, it's a home-made wooden trough of the same dimensions as that outside the Study window, but is planted with a larger assortment of plants. Along with the Pink Vein and Purple Vein surfinias, there is a fuschia (variety unknown), the pink flowered Mallow, and yellow Bidens ferulifolia. See the Fuchsias page and the Surfinias page for more details on individual plants. |
| The kitchen window, being that much wider than the upper floor windows, sports two window boxes, although, as you can see, by the middle of summer, it's impossible to tell that there are 2 separate boxes under this cascade of flowers and foliage. The range of plants used is also greater; along with the surfinias, pelargoniums and fuchsias, there are begonias, Bidens ferulifoliae, autumn flowering chrysanthemums, marigolds, Lobelia cascade, oxalis and anything else that I can't find a home for. During the winter, these troughs are replaced with the winter troughs containing 2 varieties of daffodil, namely 'February Gold' and 'Silver Chimes' interplanted with Sweet Williams and wallflowers, for colour in late winter/early spring. |
 Kitchen Window Box |
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Text, images, design and construction © cormaic web design - Last updated November 1st 2000