Rather than feel bad about not being able to give this the attention it deserves I’m putting it into its own deep freeze and leaving the last year’s postings for posterity.

I started the blog because I couldn’t really find information for those of us whose gardens are only one foot wide. Hopefully anyone looking online will find there’s now a little bit more to help get started.

With the propagator loaded up and the geraniums, sweet pea and coleus already sprouting I’m sure there’ll be plenty of colour and interest on the ledges again this summer.

The final thoughts on a year of window gardening:

• Planning a winter/early spring bulb combination along with a complete re-plant for summer is effective and efficient.
• If you want four short seasonal displays then you need to grow elsewhere and just plant the developed plants.
• Half the enjoyment is in the anticipation.
• Growing from seed is rewarding but supplementing with instant colour is ok too.
• What works well in one location one year might not work the same the next -but it’s not bad to pretend that it will!
• The variables, wind, rain, temperature, soil, timing, etc are too much to expect things to work out exactly to a rigorous plan. Be flexible and remember there’s no such thing as perfection.
• Going on holiday will leave you fretting about what will survive and why it chose that week to be the hottest of the year.
• The type and variety of plants seems infinite. Just pick a few and see what happens.
• In the middle of summer when everything is growing an inch a day, it’s ok to dispense some tough love and prune liberally. Most plants will come back stronger and those that don’t can be noted and you can remember not to be so dumb the next time.
• And finally, there’s always next year!

Thanks to everyone who read and especially to Flighty and Glo for their kind comments and encouragement.

Having gathered the new winter plants the real job was to clean out the boxes from the overgrown jungles they had become and prepare them for their new additions. This was not an easy job but anything worth doing is worth putting the time and effort into.

Over the week I faithfully took each box in from its ledge, cut back the overgrown and rotting foliage (which had looked great in summer!) and then forked out the roots and remaining foliage.

I could have just dumped everything, soil included, but this seemed like such a waste. And the thought of buying and carrying more bags of soil back from the shop was too depressing to contemplate. I’m not 100% sure that re-using the soil is a good idea but if things don’t work out over winter I can always start from scratch in mid spring again which is broadly what happened last year.

Most of the plants had vast networks of roots which covered every available inch of their constricted home. Some had even wrapped their roots around the polystyrene blocks which I put at the base of each container to ensure good drainage. Sometimes there was no other way to remove the plant than to haul everything out; roots, polystyrene and soil all in one mighty package.

I mixed in new soil along with vermiculite and fertiliser pellets to renew the food source and keep the soil relatively free draining as we are in the damp season where nothing ever seems to properly dry out. The pavements are still covered with a soggy leaf veneer and, unless it gets really cold and bright, precipitation is a permanent issue.

Bag after bag of old plants were removed and disposed of appropriately thanks to the neighbours’ garden waste bins. If I’d been really smart I could have salvaged some cuttings from plants to use next year but I’m short of space and even shorter of time so that idea will have to be kept in reserve for another day. It’ll be out with the seed trays soon enough!

After a week of work each one of the seven boxes had been re-made with a random group of plants that will hopefully survive over the winter and provide the short grey days with some life and colour. And like little secret notes hidden away for future generations each box has spring bulbs buried deep in the soil, waiting to burst forth and herald the coming of brighter, warmer and longer days.

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!!

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!

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!

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

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.

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.

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.