How to Create Beautiful Window Boxes

Having no garden is no bar to planting, cultivating and enjoying a host of flowers and plants. You just need a window box or container. Perfect on many window ledges or the smallest of patios or doorsteps, they bring instant cheer through the summer months. Gardening, even in window boxes, has been proven to lower stress levels, and children love watching plants grow.

Window box planting is straightforward – but there are tricks that can make the most of your display. Nurseries and garden centres stock pre-planted containers for people who want the gardening equivalent of ready meals. But creatively, there's no substitute for doing it yourself.

You can use almost anything to plant in, as long as it has holes in the bottom for good drainage. Otherwise your plants can become waterlogged. Tubs, troughs, window boxes and hanging baskets that are like big pots suspended on chains are easy to plant. Fill them with your potting mixture – buy from any garden store – tip out the plants from their pots or boxes and arrange them in the container. Then pack extra compost into the gaps between the roots and water well. Do not overfill the container, but leave an inch showing above the soil level. Otherwise when you water, the liquid will flow over the edge and won’t get to the plants.

You can use plain potting compost, but people who win garden competitions pep up performance with a dose of slow-release plant feed (such as Osmocote) and water-storing gel granules. Mix the latter with water first (it will turn the consistency of wallpaper glue), otherwise they swell dramatically the first time you water your container and can cause the contents to explode.

Hanging baskets made of woven wire need to be lined first. It doesn't matter what kind of liner you choose, as long as you can make holes in it – black plastic is as good as anything, and if you turn your potting compost bag inside out you'll have enough lining for free.

Fill the bowl as usual, then plant through the sides of the basket as well as the top. After a few weeks, you won't see the liner – just a solid sphere of plants.

The secret of enviable containers is constant manicuring. Water regularly before the compost dries out, feed weekly with liquid tomato feed even if you have used slow release feed, and pinch off any dead flower heads. This will encourage new flowers to take their place.

If you do leave your window box to dry out and the plants start to shrivel, all is not lost. Stand the container in a tray or washing up bowl of water to give a good soak through the roots. Cut away any dead and shrivelled areas and use liquid plant feed.