Decorate Your Flower Box With Annuals

Planting a couple of annuals in your flower box takes only a few minutes and the results last all summer long!

A couple of brightly colored annuals that work well together. What a fun planter.

Did you notice the red bands holding the box together? They match the red annuals!

Choosing a Container

Any container that can hold soil can be used for a flower box.
Make sure the container has drainage holes at the bottom. One hole if its a very small container and multiple holes if it's a large container.
The term box is used, but the container can be round, half round or rectangular.

Soil For Flower Boxes

Use Potting Soil for your container.
Top soil tends to clump up and regular garden soil is too heavy. You don't want the box falling off the structure it's attached to! A Complete potting mix works nicely.

Filling With Soil

Containers that are 18" deep or less can be filled with just potting soil.
When you have a container deeper than 18" you might want to use a filler material in the bottom to take up some space. Styrofoam peanuts work great for this. (try to find biodegradeable ones)
Fill container 2-3 inches from the rim This gives you room to work the annuals in.

Planting Your Flower Box

Remove the plants from the container they were grown in.
Set the plants onto the soil in the flower box and arrange them so they aren't too crowded.
If you are putting the container against a wall, place taller plants towards the wall and smaller plants to the front.
Containers that hang from a deck railing can be seen from both sides. Put taller flowers in the middle and surround those with smaller growing plants. Once you have them arrange, you can plant your annuals.
Rough up the roots a little on the plants and then add soil around them. Pat down the soil to keep the plants in place.

You can add a layer of mulch or spanish moss to the top of the soil for a finished look.

Seasonal Boxes:In October you can pull the annuals out of the box and fill with gourds, small pumpkins and indian corn.
In Winter fill with evergreen boughs, pinecones and a waterproof bow.

Annuals To Use

Pick annuals that YOU like, not annuals that you see everyone else using in boxes.
The tallest plant should reach a height no more than double the depth of the planter. So if your planter is 6" deep the tallest plant you use should only reach 12" when mature.
Near the edges of the planter use annuals that are going to crawl over the edges and drape down.

Keep the planting simple
choose only 3 different annuals for your flower box.

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A brightly colored window box that matches the coloring of the house trim. The box is filled with two different colors of petunias. It has a spike plant growing in the center of it to give it some vertical interest.

Garden Quote

Should it not be remembered that in setting a garden we are painting a picture of hundreds of feet or yards instead of so many inches,
painted with living flowers and seen by open daylight so that to paint it rightly is a debt that we owe to the beauty of flowers and to the light of the sun.
- William Robinson, The English Flower Garden and Home Grounds, 1883