A Festive Holiday Window Box

This morning's walk with the dog led to the local garden centre, where I searched for greenery for the Christmas holiday window planters. The selection was extremely underwhelming. Luckily, there was more than enough in my own garden to make up for it. 

Empty window planters waiting for a seasonal touch

Having a yew means always having enough greenery to build a solid backdrop for your winter planter. Yew is very hardy. A few snips now to steal away some branches will mean the shrub will just come back better in spring.

The dark green needles of yew make
an excellent background for a window planter

I made two purchases at the garden centre: boxwood and winterberry branches. Boxwood provides a nice, light-green contrast to the dark green of the yew. The berries provide the eye-catching pop of red that makes a window planter scream "festive", "holidays", and "Christmas". I hope one day that my Ilex verticillata "Red Sprite" Winterberry produces more berries than it does. Until that day, I'll have to supplement with purchased branches.

Boxwood stays evergreen and provides 
a contrast to the dark green of yew

The eye-catching red of berries is a must
for a holiday window planter

Because fresh, berry-laden branches can be quite expensive, I added a branch of fake decorative berries (I pull it out of basement storage every holiday season) to add a little more colour.

From a distance, no one will ever know
that these berries are fake

Like yew, euonymus is a shrub that just keeps on giving.  I cut a few branches from a shrub that has been growing in my garden for twenty-three years. I chose branches that best showed off the orange berries that appear each fall.

Some orange berries to go with the red

I don't particularly have a designer's eye, but I find a foolproof method of creating a successful window box planter is volume. The more, the better. I put the yew, boxwood, winterberries, and euonymus in the box in as pleasing a way as I could. Then, I grabbed some smaller bits of yew and filled in all the empty spaces. The result is pleasing, if I do say so myself. 

Holiday window planter looking festive

Years ago, I hired a garden and landscape company to create festive planters to welcome Christmas and to add a touch of colour through the bleak winter months. Thanks to an abundance of evergreens in my own garden, I can now create these festive seasonal decorations on my own and at a fraction of the cost.

Ready for the holidays and winter

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy Holidays to you and yours. 

Most important (in my humble opinion)—Happy Gardening!