The art of window box gardening seems to be a thing of the past.
Looking through an old gardening book recently, it appeared to be that the humble window box was the height of fashion from as far back as Victorian times and in cities more.
That city dwellers embraced this form of gardening with vigour was obvious from the detail given in this old book. The boxes would proudly adorn the bottom of window on rows of terraced Victorian, yellowstock brickwork houses in London and other cities in this country.
Certainly, a window box does allow for more plants to be on show. This would have been an advantage in cities because mostly the average size of gardens there, both back and front garden was fairly small.
In Paris, often gardens were non existent, the Parisians living in apartments.
The cottagers in their countryside dwellings did not seem to favour window boxes. Presumably because they had larger gardens, concentrating instead on vegetable and flower areas.
I would guess they did not need the additional work of having to attend to extra watering of the artificial environment of a window box with enough space around them to grow directly into soil.
Lapsing into nostalgia now – I do recollect as a young child growing up in London, seeing lots of brightly planteds window boxes outside houses. Something I took for granted from a child’s perspective.
The planting would inevitably comprise creeping Jenny, cascading over the side, with geraniums in bright red interspersed and perhaps, the odd marguerite to introduce white. Most probably, these plants were great stalwarts and survived grim conditions of smog, as they would have had to endure during this time in London before the clean air act came into force.
I actually love creeping Jenny – perhaps from childhood rememberances – with its bold yellow flowers cascading all along its stems. However, it can be rampant in places when suited and gardeners tend now to favour the yellow leaved variety over the old “common” green leaved type. I do agree that it enlivens most areas and grows without fuss.
In combination with violets, this creeping Jenny (or Lysimachia) is enchanting. It grows rampantly in gravel areas but is easy to take out with tiny, white thread roots which you can increase easily.
The colour scheme of yellow, bright red, white tends to be frowned upon now and it would be considered brash to our modern day palettes. An indicator of how fashion dictates as much in the plant world as it does in the clothes arena!
From my own experience, I have designed various style roof terraces but they are a more modern day phenomenon.
In London and Paris, where space is at a premium, every available planting balcony and space that can be planted up, will be. I have created different style of plantings depending on Client requirements but never the simple creeping Jenny, geranium and white marguerite. Except in Paris, where people often like this kind of flamboyance on their balconies and I have found them to be not so plant fashion orientated as we are in this country.
I would actually not select this colouring myself but I can see the appeal it must have had in London, when the window boxes would have given joy and brightness to the smoke ridden atmosphere.
Public houses are more the bastions these day of carrying on the tradition of the window box. The ones I have designed tend to feature lobelia, cascading geraniums and perhaps, small Cordyline for height and sometimes, I introduce night scented stock for its sweet perfume.
I would enjoy hearing from any reader who still has the window box tradition and what they actually plant in them.
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