Window boxes, need advice please

dnme

I live in a scenic rural cottage and would like to put some window boxes and hanging baskets on the front. I have never gardened, never wanted to and know nothing about flowers, weeds, grass or anything......nor do I want to. Today, after my first ever visit to a garden centre, it seems they don't sell the complete planted boxes, you have to buy the plants and boxes and go from there.

Here's my question..
Can anyone advise me what flowers to get? I can make up boxes etc, I just have no clue about flowers. The following criteria applies

- Cheap
- Last a long time in terms of a nice colourful display
- Nice mix of colour
- Not too much maintenance

Many thanks if you can help at all.

redser7

Just stick with common enough plants like Impatiens (Busy lizzies), pansies, trailing lobelia, petunias, marigolds, begonias.

They can be gotten failry cheaply in B&Q/woodies right now in various stages of growth. The smaller they are (plug plants) the cheaper they are.

Fill the containers with multipurpose compost. Boxes and baskets dry out quickly so they'll need frequent watering, maybe daily or twice daily in really hot weather. But you can get water-retaining gel crystals. You just mix it into the compost and they cut back on the need to water and maintainence a good bit. They will also need feeding. Again a hastle-free way is to insert fertiliser plugs or sticks. You just push these into the compost and they break down gradually feeding the plants for about 2 months. Lidl and Aldi have gel and fertilser sticks right now.

It's bit early to be leaving baskets and boxes out in the elements. But you can make them up and leave them out on fine days, but take them in at night and then back out in the morning. From late May/early June you should be ok to leave them out full time.

Feed, water and as much sunshine as you can give them and you can't go wrong.

Go up onto youtube and have a search, lots of video tutorials up there. Next year think of growing your own plants from seed. Tons of plants for next to nothing.

Good luck

Sgt Pepper 64

Our local Market does planted baskets and windows boxes for a tenner and they last all summer if watered regular!

cordni

I love million bells for hanging baskets. They grow loads of flowers and are very low maintenance. I used to always use petunias, but find million bells lower maintenance. Here's a picture for you