Midsummer Window Boxes

After a few months (and a few replantings), an update . . .

All photos this week were taken by Drew, who also took this dreamy photo of the window boxes while the lens was fogged up from the humidity

First off, thank you so much to you all for your kind words about my dad. It’s been a weird almost-month since he passed away, and it took me a while to be able to say anything about it and him, and of course it’s daunting because there’s so much I want to say, but how do you say it all? And of course this is a gardening blog, so I wanted to keep it limited to talking about my dad the gardener and how lucky I am to have had that shared interest with him. So thank you for reading, and thank you again for your comments. It’s always helpful to hear from people who have been through a similar loss, because it’s too easy to feel all alone in your grief.

Gardening, of course, has also been a huge comfort during this time. The sirens and cars and noise of Brooklyn can be as loud as they’d like to be when I’m out deadheading or watering on the terrace, because it doesn’t matter. I always go back inside after a garden session feeling better, much more calm. And this time of year is such a cheerful one, to be able to go outside and see so many flowers deciding to bloom all at once. Right now on the terrace there are dahlias, cosmos, nigella, scabiosa, snapdragons, echinacea, and zinnias, not to mention second flushes of agastache and nepeta. And remember the window boxes I wrote about a few months ago, back in April when all the plants in them were just babies? They’re actually filled with flowers at the moment, too.

These cosmos need lots of deadheading—the minute I stop I know they’ll stop blooming.

But don’t let me fool you into thinking that my planting scheme worked out as planned, because all but one of the four boxes has been replanted in some way since April. Rereading that post, I think I assumed I’d be able to plant once, and then have flowers blooming for the rest of the year. Which didn’t turn out to be the case since some plants like living in the boxes more than others, and some are just short-lived. The ‘Purple Emperor’ nasturtiums loved it for a while, but then the leaves yellowed and fried up, which may have been due to the heat, but I don’t know. One of them became so covered with tiny black bugs that I treated it as a sacrificial plant before finally pulling it out so I could replant the whole box.

I also didn’t take my gardening pickiness into account when I wrote that post. Did I really think I was going to stick some plants in and automatically like how they grew and how they looked next to the other plants in the window boxes? Maybe it’s because I’m growing solely in containers now, but this year I’ve been so fickle with flower combinations, taking out plants and sticking them elsewhere without even really thinking about it first. It’s OK, though, because usually the plants are just fine being transplanted, and I never get bored of digging in the dirt

Replanting one of the window boxes (but leaving the angelonia in)

So, yes, the window boxes don’t look the same as when they were planted, not just because the plants grew, obviously, but also because some of the plants are not the ones I originally planted. Also, I’m still learning. Learning about what looks good, and also discovering which shapes and sizes plants take on when crammed next to each other in narrow window boxes. It’s been a lot of fun, though, and it’s always so exciting when a combination works out.

Box One

The first box hasn’t changed all that much. I originally planted it up with an ornamental oregano (origanum ‘Amythyst Falls’), a pink angelonia that I bought at some local hardware store, and cosmos ‘Rubinato,’ and the only thing I took out was the angelonia. The color was a little too pink for me, a little too Barbie. I’m not sure why I chose it, but right now it’s sitting in a pot with one of the roses. I swapped it out for a Japanese aster (‘Hortensis’) that I’d bought at a plant nursery in Atlanta last year. Much better. The aster adds height, and I do have a bit of a hint of white theme going now in most of the boxes. This particular cosmos variety is so good for window boxes, too. Very compact, but healthy, and it just keeps on flowering.

Box Two

Here’s another that hasn’t changed too much. This box had a ‘Purple Emperor’ nasturtium in it, along with agastache ‘Kudos Ambrosia’ and another cosmos ‘Rubinato.’ The nasturtium looked great for a while, but not for long, so I replaced the plant with an extra nicotiana ‘Suaveolens’ that I grew from seed. I’m not sure how long it will last, but right now I love it. Like the Japanese aster, the nicotiana is tall and spindly and blows in the wind very nicely. And the agastache is so pretty when it blooms—the blooms are a bit short-lived, but if you cut them back after the petals get all brown, you can get more flushes. The foliage looks nice, and the cosmos blooms so much that the box is always full of flowers, so if one plant decides to take a break, it’s not a big deal.

Box Three

This is the box that got an extreme makeover. I originally put two nasturtiums in, with a ‘Purple Haze’ agastache in the middle, but then I decided that the agastache would look great in my parents’ garden with their roses, so I dug it up and brought it back to South Carolina. And it does look great! So much bigger than it could ever be in a window box. I replaced it with a lavender angelonia, and everything was going well until the nasturtiums did their thing and dried up. So I just dug them out and dug in a perennial scabiosa and also ‘Powis Castle’ artemisia, which I’d grown back in Portland. The box was getting so lavender-heavy that I felt it needed some foliage to balance it out, but, honestly, I’m not sure if I like the artemisia. Is it too silvery? Is it too soft and small? We’ll see.

Box Four

An original planting that worked! And, it might be my favorite? In this one I planted an ornamental oregano, yet another cosmos ‘Rubinato,’ and a gaura I brought from South Carolina, and it’s possibly at its best right now. The gaura is still blooming (spindly white flowers: it’s a theme) the cosmos are too, and the oregano is finally earning its keep. It was a slow grower—I guess I did buy it when it was tiny—and for the longest time it looked like ordinary oregano. Not super exciting. But all of a sudden the stems lengthened and the buds unfurled, and it now looks like a trailing hops plant, studded with tiny purple flowers. So: very happy in July, but I’ll keep an eye on it—as well as everything else—to see if it continues on being a good window box contender. Update later!

Garden Notes:

• I complain about the heat in every post so I’ll try to keep it to a minimum right now, but it’s still been hot here in the city, and a daily watering is still a must. But no casualties as of yet. I did take out the mignonette plant because it just looked sad. That’s probably the last of mignonette for me. Not impressed.

• I get sad when I don’t have seeds to sow, so I have been sticking sunflower seeds in every bare spot I see in the pots. I’m growing ‘Astra Rose Cream,’ and I’m hoping they look as pretty as they do on Baker Creek’s site, and I’m also hoping that it’s not too late for sowing sunflowers.

• I also have some celosia, cleome, and verbena ‘Bonariensis’ growing, so hoping those will be blooming in time to add some color to the garden once some of the annuals decide to burn out.