It’s apt that this post comes without a picture as it’s the lack of photography that’s slowed the blog posts down to barely a drip.

As each window box developed it’s own eco-system it got harder to keep track of what was happening and although there were plenty of changes it was too easy to think that they looked much the same as the previous week. This was a mistake of course. Had I kept taking the pictures each week the changes would have been obvious and there would have been a nice record of the rise and fall of the window garden.

Unfortunately I didn’t do this and so the blog slowed down as a consequence.

Since summer when I was able to bask in the glory of my earlier planning (everything from spring bulbs to seed planting produced results) it’s been a little depressing to think about the impending winter and almost a complete restart of the process. Watching the slow degredation of the plants that had provided such a lovely display was almost too much. But by this weekend the state of the boxes had become too bad even for me to leave any longer.

A visit to the garden centres on the weekend demonstrated that I had procrastinated far longer than I realised. Instead of pansies and cyclamen there was just aisle after aisle of (whisper it!) Christmas trees! Multiple journeys to other shops all resulted in the same scene. Where had all the bulbs gone?! Was I really much more prepared last year? How is it November already?

With little to choose from a bit of creativity was required so instead of pretty frost-resistant cyclamen there will be fingers-crossed primroses. Violas instead of pansies, and some unusual shrubby type Ajuga, Calocephalus and Cineraria. If anything it will at least be interesting to see what survives!

And in a month or so it will be time to look out the seed packets and get planning again for those warmer longer days when the flowers are in full bloom and the feet can be put up.

Addendum: Having had a quick look back I see that I started this blog around the same time last year but that I had done the winter planting in September! No wonder there was nothing left in the garden centres!!

Bless the summer for its long days, warm temperatures and reliable ability to never live up to expectations. Childhood summers were much hotter, longer and drier, weren’t they? (I’m actually sure they weren’t but the collective consciousness suggests otherwise – or at least the mass media do).

In window-box gardening this means that with a minimal amount of care and attention (regular watering, occasional feeding) you too can end up with a small jungle within arms reach.

But all good things must come to an end. Finally having a bit of spare time to really get stuck in and have a good look at what was going on outside my window it was on with the gardening gloves and out with the secateurs. And boy, was there some work needing done!

Marigolds had suffered from a bit of neglect on my part – sometimes you just can’t water as much as required! – and some had given up the ghost. So after the picture posted here was taken, those sagging brown shapes in the middle were given the chop.

Left, right and centre leaves are turning yellow, particularly the nasturtiums. Anything that looked unsightly was ruthlessly dispensed with. Hopefully this will allow the remaining greenery to stave off the inevitable decline that little bit longer. Petunias were deadheaded and any obviously dying stems were also given the chop to let more resources go to the remaining healthy sections. Petunias are great trailing plants for window boxes but they get sticky and yucky as they die back so a quick prune seems like a good idea.

The nasturtiums have also become infested (I hate that word but in this case it’s the only way to describe them) by black aphid-like bugs. Having been left to their own devices for so long these bugs have well and truly taken over. Next year I really can’t leave it as long between interventions! It’s also a good reminder that early action can prevent hours of later reaction! I must have spent a good hour clipping bits of nasturtium off in an attempt to leave a few trailing tendrils of flowers. However I feel like I’ll be back there again this weekend to remove much more.

After a good couple of hours trimming, removing and tidying it was time for a well earned sit down and a cup of tea!

I’ve been putting off writing the next post because it’s undeniable that summer is on the way out and that means that all the planning, nurturing and growing will, in time, follow it out too.

It had started to become more obvious about two weeks ago when previously lush foliage started to look a little limp and yellow. At first it’s just the odd leaf, which in growing season is not surprising anyway. But then day-by-day you notice that it’s a couple of leaves. Then a few more flowers than normal. Then the drooping foliage that used to perk up after a good watering no longer looks so perky.

At this point you realise that the long daylight (sometimes sunny, sometimes not – but always light) days are waning and the extensive growth can no longer be sustained. It might be that some of the plants, like the ever-spreading petunias, would have benefitted from a helping hand in the form of a harsh chop back, just to reduce the amount of growth they have to sustain with the dwindling resources available to them.

In essence this is what it comes down to; a problem with logistics. Like a rampaging army that outruns its supply chain, they simply need to fall back and consolidate the ground they’ve made. Although for this little army of flowers they will slowly but surely be pushed back until nothing remains.

It’s amazing what a few minutes less light, a little less heat and a bit more wind can do. I’ll post the pics when I get the courage!

Finally remembered to take the camera out with me to get a few pictures of the window boxes from street level. As you can see (hopefully) they’re too overflowing to turn around from inside any more so they’ll stay like this until the frosts come back and it’s time for the winter clothes to return. After spending the first few months thinking months ahead now I’m trying to do the opposite and just live in the moment – dismissing all thought of colder, shorter days.

The pictures below show just how much the nasturtiums have taken over. They were all planted directly into the boxes from seed after my idea of transplanting from seedlings proved to be a failure. Seeing how quickly they’ve grown now however I know that next year I don’t need to worry about getting them off to an early start.

In fact next year it might just be as well to put some poor quality soil into the boxes with a few nasturtium seeds and get instant flower boxes. Apparently the worse the soil the more they flower. It would certainly be a lot less effort than my plan this year.

The picture from the inside is different though with the marigolds which are now invisible from street level, giving an extra layer of interest while many of the other flowers are hidden from view.

Joel Outside ...

... and inside

Maggie Outside ...

... and In

I was looking at all the colours in my windowboxes as I did my near daily inspection, and this little kids song popped into my head. Isn’t it odd that thoughts that have remained dormant for so long can suddenly be brought to life. The mind is truly a weird, wonderful and unbelievably complicated thing.

Red

and Yellow

and Pink

and Green,

Orange

and Purple

and Blue

I can blog a Rainbow, blog a rainbow, blog a rainbow too.

P.S. I cheated with the Blue picture which is a Himalayan Poppy that I happen to think is lovely. The rest are from my own garden, that pic is courtesy of pkdon50 on Flickr.

Thank you Mother Nature – doing all the hard work while I get to sit back with my feet up and enjoy the mini-forest growing outside my window. A little bit of dead-heading here, a lot of watering there and hey presto! everything keeps on chugging away – day AND night it seems (I’m sure things are visibly bigger when I look in the morning that when I go to bed.

Of course it’s not all sweetness and light in these northern climes. A couple of thunderstorms and a stiffer breeze have tested the hardiness of these flower boxes. But with eight weeks or so of good growing behind them the majority are proving robust enough to cope with the slightly harsher conditions. And I’m confident that even if we go to gale force for a couple of days they’ll be able to bounce back in good time.

And as a special bonus (and I’ll kick myself for saying this, I know!) but the aphid problem has disappeared over the last couple of weeks. There are a few caterpillars munching their way through the nasturtium leaves in particular. Other than that the boxes are disease free which is very welcome given how easily any pest would spread.

So I’m putting my feet up, enjoying the patchy sunshine and letting Mother Nature take the strain for now

It hasn’t all been a success story although the way the window boxes look at the moment I have no idea where I would have put anything else. It wasn’t the intention to grow everything from seed but unfortunately some seeds just didn’t work as well as others so they needed a bit of a boost from some shop-bought specimens like these pink petunias.

While I thought I was starting a bit early (looking back I see it was late Jan\Early Feb that I sowed my first geranium seeds) some of the seedlings still weren’t ready for planting out and ultimately I was too late in sowing Impatiens and Nemesia in particular. Neither really got going and by the time I was planting up the few that had made it into seedlings were much too weak for them to stand a chance.

Although a lot of the Brachycome did poorly and many were decimated by aphids, the ones that were strong enough to survive outdoors have done brilliantly. So perhaps not one to rely on but worth having a go. Now that they’re coming into flower (in a very sunny spot) I can’t believe that they were looking so weedy and slight just a few weeks ago. They look like mini shrubs or bushes now!

The nasturtiums prove to be fine when planted directly outside but did very poorly when grown indoors then transplanted. The outdoor varieties are unstoppable at the moment and need a bit of management to stop them taking over completely. The only problem is that as my soil mix and drainage is so good I think the conditions are too good for them and they have lots of huge leaves and not so many flowers. Maybe next time I’ll pop them in a box on their own and treat them poorly as this is supposed to make them flower more!

The verbena, like the brachycome, also got a bit straggly and were attacked by the aphids. But generally those that have survived outdoors have done quite well and found little gaps to put up their parachutes of purple flowers.

In then end I disposed of about twenty or thirty seedlings that were either too late to be useful, had fallen victim to aphids or a bit of both. As with all the growing this year though there’s been as much to learn from the failures as from the successes.

Love this picture of a Livingstone Daisy (Mesembryanthemum) in full bloom. This only happens when it’s really sunny and mine in particular seem to want there to be long unbroken periods of sun before they’re willing to risk it. Even on a good day that’s a big ask.

This will maybe prove to be a bit of a jinx but the weather continues to be a huge help to my one foot wide garden. The sun (and showers) are very welcome, the warmth (but not stiffling heat) are helpful and most importantly, the calm airflow is a godsend. Even minor breezes can wreak havoc on a window box but through some good plant selection (only the nasturtiums rise above 18 inches and they can be persuaded to try a different route) and better luck every box is brimming over with flowers and foliage. When I get a chance I’ll take a few photos from street level to show how well everything is doing from down there.

The marigolds have flowered non-stop from before they were even planted out. The real crowd pleaser though has been the box pictured on the left here. This basically faces north so even with long sunny days and early sunny mornings it’s lucky to get a glimmer of direct sunlight. Despite this though there are a host of flowers and although you can’t see them on this picture the blue lobelia are tumbling over the edge of the box.

With marigolds, lobelia, petunia, livingstone daisies, verbena and nasturtiums all flowering somewhere in the garden the last plant to burst into bloom are the geraniums. As you can see from the picture this one is slowly coming into flower, one bud at a time. I’m a little impatient for two reasons. One is that, having grown them from seed it’ll be very rewarding to see them all the way through to flowering. But the second reason is that I’d hate for the weather to turn and catch them just before I get the chance to see them at their best. Fingers crossed that they speed up a little.

It’s well and truly summertime now and mother nature has been kind to us here in Scotland. A bit of rain, some thunderstorms and a couple of windy-ish days but generally lots of sun, warm temperatures and a few really gloriously long hot days. My gut feeling is that it’s much better than last year which was my first year of having flower boxes. Getting the boxes into outdoor conditions in early June has meant that everything is well  established in the boxes and they’re now fighting it out for space.

When I planned the boxes I ruled out trying to create a colour scheme or bothering about the scents of the flowers as there’s was already enough to bother about with light conditions, type of plant, size, shape, etc.

Some time ago I said that I thought that purple and green worked surprisingly well together and perhaps subliminally I took that on board because there’s lots and lots of purple in the boxes.

The petunia surfinia are the main culprits as once they got rooted they spread off in all directions, poking their way between geraniums and asters and throwing up velvety purple flowers in every available space.

Adding to the mono-colour purple domination are the verbena (pic above). I’m quite proud of these as they were grown from seed, unlike the petunias which were shop-bought. I thought they had gone a bit straggly and the aphids really took a shine to them but they’ve survived and are now flowering all over the boxes.

Just to add to the purple-ness the brachycome have now come into flower and they too are the exact same shade of purple as they verbena and petunia. The dainty little daisy-like flowers are a welcome addition to the flower boxes and in truth they’re a nice contrast with the hot pink petunias alongside them.

But it’s funny that three plants have ended up with such similar shades of purple when I wasn’t trying to coordinate colours this year. Luck of the draw I guess!

When I planted all the window boxes this year I neatly wrote little tabs for each type and slipped them carefully into the side of the box.

Then as I added some more plants I wrote out some more tabs. Then I forgot to write some tabs. Then I took out some nasturtiums that had died and randomly replaced them with more seeds. And of course I forgot to write tabs for those as well.

Is there a moral to this story? Well only that if I had a proper garden then I’d have no idea how to cope. And so I’m full of admiration for those with big gardens or allotments where there’s a whole range of plants that all need their own special treatment.

This year was about experimentation to see what would work and what wouldn’t. I had thought that I would be able to track the progress of each plant and keep a useful record that I could use again next year. So much for that idea! I bit off much more than I could chew and now it’s just as much as I can do to sit back and watch how everything goes.

Maybe at some point I’ll be able to make some judgement on how things have done but I don’t think I’m quite ready to take on something much bigger than a window box at the moment.