aromaticwings - you want to look for drought-tolerant plants like portulaca, petunias, vinca, marigolds, etc. People can come up with a million different combinations for all types of growing conditions. So it's one of those things where walking into a nursery and checking out what they have and mixing and matching based on the amount of sun the plants can take, as well as looking at foliage type and plant heights, can sometimes yield a unique combination that really works out well. It's experimenting! There are many sites out there that show combos but one of the Farmer's almanac sites has a nice simple list of popular plants grouped by exposure and type of habit that is helpful! In the past, I usually planted for spring (eg., pansies, snapdragons,etc) and then summer (where the summer plants could go through to frost - eg., petunias, wax begonias, sweet potato vine, etc). But this year I'm trying some Salvia coccinea "Hummingbird Red" and "Lady in Red" to give my hummers something to buzz around. I surrounded them with some white alyssum for fragrance (although I know they tend to go a bit dormant when it gets hot but are wonderful in spring/fall or cool days in summer).

For the last 3 years, I've grown lobelia, experiment with colors, but am tired of it, may go one more year with it and use up the seeds. Mine I use for planters to sit around on the ground to add interest (hopefully). The wave petunias are probably good, just had a couple last year, didn't get them started right. I think I started my white alyssum and transplanted out of a window box. Then I grew a really pretty alyssum mix, crystal? something from T&M, but it didn't last long, was pretty short, and didn't self seed like the white. I've got geraniums in 2 window boxes but am having trouble finding companion plants as they tend to crowd. The pink is nice with iresine, best, fastest trailing plant I have, but it tends to crowd out other things I've tried like vinca and even my white alyssum wasn't too happy. The iresine I've kept going from a sale rack of wilted stuff for about 5 years now, roots easily in water. I have to shear it off when I bring it in in the fall and sometimes try to thin it out a bit. 4 sprigs across the front will spread fast enough. It's beautiful when the sun hits it in the afternoon, a red color, have that box mounted under a window and the iresine almost touches the ground. I'm open to new ideas and combos because I want to add a couple every year; they're easy to maintain. Never thought of popppies, love those, but how about violas and pansies? If you set them where you want them the following year, they may self seed out of the box.

Oh, those are pretty. Good choice! Not necessarily, unless they're required for support purposes. If you really want them, maybe you can add them later but It's not something I'd worry too much over. Do you don't think people will notice either way?. Do you notice the brackets (or lack there of) when you're passing a cute house with window boxes? Maybe you can get some cedar wood ones and paint them instead. Just have the paint store match the white on the box. I found these with just a simple Google search and they're less than 25.00 for a pair so it shouldn't be to hard to find them locally. http://www.cedarwoodfurniture.com/cedarbracket.html?cmp=googleproducts&kw=cedarbracket

Yes, Lynda, yours is about the same color as the house Emerald Living posted, on my monitor. However, I really dont mind the color at all. It looks nice and fresh and clean. I think the big difference is that you have black trim around the windows for extra interest, and Emerald Living does not. They are both really cute houses.