How to Make Winter Holiday Window Boxes

Do you have window boxes on your home that you keep planted with all kinds of summer flowers? They look beautiful when planted with all the different kinds of annuals and they give your home a perfectly charming look. But what do you do when the weather turns to winter and those summer annuals die back and look brown and ugly? Here's a way to keep those boxes looking wonderful all winter and will even help with the holiday decorating.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Fresh evergreens
• Pinecones
• Artificial stems
• X-mas decor
• Branches with berries

1. 
    
   WHO WANTS TO LOOK AT THIS?

   If the flowers in your window boxes have died back due to the cold weather where you live, you'll want to remove those dead and brown flower stalks. After all, a window box does usually hang from the bottom of your windows and who wants to look out and see a messy tangle of dead flowers all winter? Begin the transformation of your boxes by cleaning up all the dead foliage, pull up the whole root ball removing all of the plant that you can. With a hand fork ( a hand tool that looks like 3 or 4 curled fingers) loosen the soil in the box and smooth the surface.

2. 
    
   ADD A WREATH TO YOUR WINDOW BOX

   Once your window box is clean, begin your arrangement by pushing cut evergreens into the soil. If you have Juniper or Holly or any kind of berries, these would all look great in your box. I also like to use cut branches of Red Twig Dogwood, the red branches look so good with the evergreens. Use the appropriate size branches for your window box. Use alot of the evergreens, these will be the "filler" of the box. Once the box is mostly filled with the greens, start adding things like branches and pinecones. If you would like to add some color to your boxes, think of all the great looking silk or artificial stems that are available. I use artificial poinsettias on my tree at times and they look darn good. Consider using a few poinsettia flowers in each box, they come in many different colors and would add some nice contrast.

3. 
    
   RED ALWAYS IS AN EYE CATCHER

   Since this is the first of December, chances are that you'll be thinking of getting your Christmas decor out of storage soon. Go thru your decor and see what you may have to use in your window boxes. Large red bow's, small grapevine wreaths or ornaments that lend themselves to outside would all be appropriate. Or for a more formal look use sugared fruit on picks to add a real sparkle to your boxes.

Tips & Warnings

• I always use cut evergreens in my window boxes as they are readily available and free. But you may choose to use a few of the small potted live evergreens that you see in the large home improvement stores. If your climate is not too cold, the Rosemary topiary's would be beautiful. Simple sit the pots right down inside the window box. If all you use is greenery and pinecones, then your window boxes will look much better than with last years flowers.

[ShannaFuentes]

on 12/6/2008 Great idea! Thank you!

[Sidhartha]

on 12/3/2008 what a great idea.

[luv2blog]

on 12/3/2008 What a good idea. I don't have a window box, but they could be really pretty this time of year. Thanks!

[JasneJ]

on 12/3/2008 I love seeing fresh greens at the windows and doors.Great pics & ideas.Thanks.

[momofour]

on 12/2/2008 Great ideas and beautiful window boxes. Thanks for the article. I have never done anything with mine for the winter so I can't wait to try my hand with your ideas. Thanks Dusty!