Late Summer Window Box

A feature that's unique to my home is a brick, built-in window box on the front exterior. It's just to the left of our front door, nestled under a crepe myrtle. It gets dappled sunlight, but stays pretty shady for much of the day. Back in the spring, I planted white vincas there and that's all I did. Now, late in the summer season, I was ready to add in a few extras to carry me over into the fall season. Here in south Alabama, we don't start getting consistent cooler temps until around early October.  Adding in a few other textures and shades of green will provide a little variation to hold me over until those fall mums show up in my local garden center. 

My local Wal-Mart has tons of plants from the spring growing season marked half off. I decided to keep everything really simple, opting to buy various textures and shades of green foliage rather than trying to grow flowers this late in the season. Many flowers are already spent this late and wouldn't do as well as foliage would. I chose sweet potato vine, hostas, and dusty miller. Also, I added in some Fox Tail Fern that I transplanted from other  pots. When I get ready to plant a fall window box, I can transplant the hostas into the landscape and possibly carry some of the others over into the fall season.

Before: The white Vincas are pretty, but it was plain. 

I started by placing each plant, still potted, where I thought it would look best so that I could get a visual before actually planting. Once I get the look I'm going for, I planted each one. This window box is really narrow, so it can be difficult to get a lot in it. Since this particular grouping won't be in there for long before it will be time for a fall redo, I really packed the plants in there as much as I could. There isn't any reason to leave space since they won't be in there long enough to spread and grow too much.

The end result is subtle, but that is what I was going for this late in the season. I absolutely love the color of the sweet potato vine and the beautiful vincas!