As you may know, I have a window box along the front of my house.  Here’s a picture of it from last year.

At 11′ long, it ends up taking quite a few plants to fill it with annuals every spring.  Not to mention mums for fall …

and evergreens for winter.

I find that there are two ends of the spectrum when it comes to filling window boxes; at one end you have the gardener (not naming any names here) who plants exactly the same thing in their planters every year without fail.

Then there are gardeners like Erin from the Impatient Gardener who can’t stand to do the same thing every year and thus tries something new each spring.

I think I fall somewhere in between.  When I find something that works I like to stick with it.  But I also don’t want to fall into a gardening rut.  So this year I decided to step outside my comfort zone and experiment with some new things in the front window box.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, the resulting combination is a bit of a fail.

Before I start listing the plants for you, I’ll point out that this window box faces north and is in full shade which limits the plant options considerably.

My starting out point was a Streptocarpus Ladyslippers™ Deep Blue Vein that I found at the Amish nursery in Wisconsin that nnK and I visited in spring.

I’ve grown this plant as a house plant in the past, but had never put it outside in a planter.  These plants were just loaded with gorgeous purple flowers when I saw them at the nursery so I thought they’d add a fabulous pop of color.  And actually, they did look great for about 6 or 7 weeks, but lately the blooms have petered off quite a bit.  After doing a bit of research I learned that temperatures above 80° will cause that.  So … maybe not a great choice for an outdoor planter in summer.  They also haven’t grown much, so they are getting swallowed up by some of the more vigorous plants.

My next ‘mistake’ was taking the advice of a random stranger at the garden center who suggested that Dusty Miller would be a great companion to the Streptocarpus.

I hadn’t grown this plant in forever.  I can remember planting it in the ground way back when I was new to gardening.  So when she suggested it, I thought ‘why not?’  After all, I’m experimenting with some new options.

But I have to say, I don’t really love it.  It’s doing great, but I think I’m just not a fan of ‘silver’ foliage.

Which leads me to my next plant choice, Dichondra Silver Falls.

I’d been hearing about this plant on various gardening vlogs lately and I needed something to tie in with the Dusty Miller, so I gave it a shot.  I will say that it is also performing exceptionally well, I mean, just look at it (photo above).  It clearly loves this spot.

But again, I don’t love that silver foliage.  You know what I think it is?  To me it looks like these plants have a bad case of powdery mildew.

I also opted to add a second pop of color with a couple of Amstel Netja Dark begonias.

An Amstel begonia is a cross between a tuberous begonia and a wax begonia.  Again, I hadn’t grown begonias in years.  I’d never had good luck with them in the past, I tend to overwater them leading to root rot.  They are rather picky about not sitting in wet soil.  But these newer varieties are improvements over those I planted in the past, so why not give it a shot.

And once again, I was drawn in by that gorgeous color.  It’s always tricky to find a plant that will bloom reliably in the shade.

Although these have done fairly well with continuous blooms for color, they also haven’t really put on any additional bulk.  Much like the Streptocarpus, they aren’t holding their own against the other plants in the box.

I did put a couple of old favorites in the window box too including a Dark Eyes fuchsia.

These always do really well in this north facing location.  They tend to be messy plants, dropping those flowers all over the place, so I wouldn’t use these in a spot where they would hang over a deck or patio.  But there is a garden beneath this window box and the flowers all fall down under the plants below.

Finally, I also planted some Diamond Frost Euphorbia in the window box.

It always makes a great filler, but this year it is quickly taking over and almost smothering the other plants.

So, in the end, I’m calling this year’s front window box a bit of a fail.  Although most of the plants look rather pretty up close, in combination and from a distance they just look rather anemic to me.

I don’t think I would repeat any of them, except the fuchsia.

I would use the euphorbia again too, especially if I ever decide to do another all white and green combo like the one I did in 2014.

That one included the euphorbia along with white impatiens, a white caladium, some jester ferns and some ivy.  And it was one of my favorites.

It was a fun one to transition into fall too.  I simply pulled out the impatiens and added white mums and pumpkins, and some flower heads that were turning green from one of my hydrangeas.

I have to give the award for ‘most spectacular combination’ in a window box to this one from 2021 though.

That combination of coleus, sweet potato vine and lemon coral sedum just pops.

There were some white New Guinea impatiens in that mix too, but as you can see they got rather swallowed up as well.

In the end, I learned some valuable lessons from the choices I made for this year’s window box.  I think next year I may try another all white combination again.  In the meantime, I may try to salvage this year’s combo by pulling out the Streptocarpus and the begonias and replacing them with something else.  We’ll see.

But how about you?  Have you learned any lessons from garden fails?  Leave a comment and let me know.