Forum home› Plants
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

plants for window box?

filangerifilangeri Posts: 4
in Plants
I live in central London in a third floor flat and want to put something in a window box (Southern exposure) that will look decent all year and attract birds (to entertain my cats) or perhaps a bird feeder is necessary for that? Doesn't have go be colourful and flowery, I like green stuff too. Thanks for any suggestions

Posts

  • filangerifilangeri Posts: 4
    Thanks for the advice - the window boxes are already in place and sort of part of the building
  • Blue OnionBlue Onion Posts: 2,995
    How large are they?  Can you add some pictures?  

    As Pansy said, seasonal displays will always be at their best.. versus something that will look a bit ragged for parts of the year.  You could do a bit of a combination of the two.. buy twice as many pots as would fill half the surface, and you plant up your box with some evergreens of some sort, and bury half the pots to the brim.  These become your seasonal displays, in the other set of pots.. which you pull in and out easily to change and repot.  Spring bulbs, summer bedding plants, winter bedding, etc.  Every few months you have something fresh and new to enjoy.. while the evergreens just keep doing their thing as a foil for the feature plants.  

    I suggest you find a bird feeder for your window.  I can't think of anything in a window box that will give more than a few meals to a few birds.  Get some of the mess-free seed.. just to keep from annoying neighbors below.  Or a peanut feeder.. those green parrots loved them at our feeder in Richmond.. they were so fun to watch.  
    Utah, USA.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited October 2020
    Heucheras come in a wide variety of shades and look pretty good all year. Bees like the flowers. Some people, like @B3, like coleus. Erigeron look pretty good for much of the year. You might add to a mix, spring, summer and autumn flowering bulbs and cyclamen. Begonias (like Million Kisses), species tulips, colicum, allium, fuchsia.

    Just some of the above to consider, depending on what you like. None are good for birds but the right types might work for you.
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    Attracting birds to 'entertain a cat' is horrible. 
    Sorry.
    As for plants, a photos would help with ideas, but as already said, there are a lot of factors to consider, watering being the prime one. Nothing is really going to be all year round attractive in that location without quite a bit of attention. Erigeron is probably one of the few that would, so that's a good idea, but would be boring after a while, so it would need some additions as mentioned.
    The size of the containers determines the planting, and also what time you have to attend to them. 
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • sarinkasarinka Posts: 270
    I would just buy some seasonal bedding plants, maybe like 3 trays of mixed plants for £9, from Homebase or the supermarket or wherever, every season. Some colour would be lovely. And a hanging bird feeder would be a kindness to the local birds.

    Don't forget to put a bit of foam or stones or broken crockery at the bottom of the window boxes for drainage, then top up the top part of the compost when you replace plants.

    I lived in a flat for nearly a decade and SO understand the urge to have a few plants. People with the luxury of gardens are very, very fortunate.
  • KeenOnGreenKeenOnGreen Posts: 1,831
    I personally would go for evergreen plants.  It sounds like you look at the window box 365 days a year, and the problem with seasonal plants is that they look awful as they are dying down, and you can end up with bare patches of soil, whilst something else is getting going.  

    I would opt for low-growing Sedums (Dragon's Blood, Pachyclados, Weihenstephaner Gold are just a few), as they are drought tolerant and won't need so much watering.  Delosperma is a lovely, hardy succulent with stunning bright flowers in Summer.  These are all hardy and evergreen for us in the South East.  Some Ophiopogon Nigrescens grass would provide some dramatic contrast (it is jet black), and it has small lilac flowers in Summer.  If your window box is big, you might even be able to squeeze in a dwarf shrub, such as Euonymus Green Spire, but that would mean more watering.

    Re the birds: my experience of bird feeders is that they leave a lot of mess.  If the dropped seeds fall in your window box, you will have random grasses growing when they germinate.  It usually also attracts Pidgeons, which might trample over your window box to find the seeds that other birds have dropped from the feeder.  If you must have a feeder, try to keep it well away from the window box.
  • filangerifilangeri Posts: 4
    Thanks for so many good tips (including the "horrible" one). I'm particularly fond of succulents so thanks Keen for those suggestions - very lovely plants and the grass too!
  • filangerifilangeri Posts: 4
    The cats do not have access to the birds: it's a third floor flat with a window box 🙄

  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    edited October 2020
    You might like the solanum with the red berries. They're usually about this time of year. I'm not sure how frost tolerant they are though.
    Edit
    Just checked. They're indoor plants😕
    In London. Keen but lazy.
Sign In or Register to comment.