Fall/Winter Window Boxes

Hallo Friends,

Today I am sick at home with another round of the family cold that's been traveling around our house. I had it 2 weeks ago and just got it again. This time it's worse and I now have a voice like a man's and enough mucus to build a small thatch hut for two.
So I am home sick today which means I'll be knitting, sleeping, drinking and beeeeeloging.

Today's topic will be all about my new window boxes, which I know you've all been anxiously awaiting news of this season's winter-hardy plantings. So here goes.

I went to Hastings Garden Center this year (don't bother going to Lowes or Home Depot as they have nothing new and interesting and no one knows anything about what they're selling, nor do they want any difficult questions from you or any other shopper) and bought the standard pansies (white and purple) to fill in gaps with cheery color. I needed something trailing, so chose English Ivy, which is very hardy and can get nice and full as long as you pinch it every so often. Just don't ever put this stuff in the ground! It spreads like fire and will choke anything it can find. English Ivy is evergreen (lasts the winter) and looks SOOOO pretty in pots and baskets. Nice on your front porch, too. That's what I love about plants. They say, "someone who is capable of love, lives here and takes care of me." Now that's a house I want to walk into. A house filled with love. (Go ahead, you can gag now if you want to. I'm sick, ok?)

So after choosing some standards, I found a variety of really interesting looking plants called Euphorbia. I got three varieties: Euphorbia Blackbird, Euphorbia Tasmanian Tiger and Euphorbia Glacier Blue. They are winter hardy and actually flower for a long time beginning in spring. They are supposed to get really tall, which probably isn't too good for the window boxes. So once spring gets here, I'm putting these babies into the ground where they will live and flourish.

So that's what I do with my window boxes. Every season, I put something evergreen in there, then something meant not to last and just for color, an annual like (pansies for winter or petunias for summer.) What survives at the end of that season, I put into the ground in my kidney shaped bed out front, or by the mailbox, or along my fence. So they cycle keeps going. Someday I'll be one of those crazy old ladies with no grass and all flowers and twenty cats in my yard. Closets bursting with a ten year supply of whatever hobby I'd put aside in favor of the next and no money in the bank. When I die, my estate sale will be a bonanza for the creative person. Just you wait.