Top Flowers for Window Boxes and Flower Boxes

Overview

Great flower-box plants mix well with others, offer varied colors, shapes, fragrances, and tolerate root confinement with minimal care.

Sweet Marjoram (Origanum majorana)

Fragrant hardy perennial, 1–2 feet, multi-branched. 1-inch fragrant leaves, tiny flowers. Well-drained soil, slightly high pH, full sun. Frequent water. Propagate by seed or cuttings. Bonus: culinary herb.

Mealycup Sage (Salvia farinacea)

Easy perennial (often grown as annual), 1–4 feet. Blue flower spikes from spring. Green leaves with silver undersides. Average soil, full sun, afternoon shade in heat. Well-drained. Propagate by seed or spring division.

Lily of the Nile (Agapanthus praecox)

Evergreen perennial, strap-like 1-foot leaves, trumpet-shaped blue flowers 1–2 inches in 6–12 inch clusters. Summer bloom. Full sun, regular water. Propagate by spring clump division or seed (2–3 years to flower).

Angelonia (Angelonia angustifolia)

Perennial for containers. 2–3 inch smooth apple-scented leaves. Blue-lilac 1-inch flowers on 8-inch spikes all summer. Full sun, regular water. Propagate by root division, seed, or tip cuttings.

Madagascar Periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus)

Fast-growing vinelike perennial, 2–3 feet tall/wide. 2–3 inch leaves. Pink, red, white, purple 1.5-inch flowers all summer. Poor but well-drained soil, full sun to part shade. Propagate by seed or spring/summer cuttings.