The back of our townhouse in Saanich is a plain tall blank wall of siding -- rather ugly, in my view. I am thinking of a Japanese-style window-box planter to put under an upstairs window... , and this would be visible from the street to some degree, and improve the look of the back wall. The townhouse's architectural style would lend itself to Japanese themes. And I am developing a Japanese-style small garden at the front. Our siding, circa 1984, is dark brown-stained cedar or some other plank wood siding, the windows are standard steel/vinyl trimmed sliders or something of that sort, the roof has a very big overhang, western-style. I am thinking of a cedar, rectangular, oblong box stained to match the siding [a dark brown opaque wood stain] but since the siding on the front of the townhouse has some cream-painted highlighting trim, I am thinking of a window-box made in a somewhat rustic style with cream-painted trim or board on it somewhere, such as corner posts or supports for the sides, or an exaggeratedly heavy wooden under-support made of wood, painted cream, while the rest is dark. But dripping earth-stained water from the box might stain any cream-coloured wood underneath, so perhaps using metal bracket supports would be best, and put any cream colour on the upper part of the box. What I need is a sketch or photo of similar, looking solid but rustic and fitting a possible "Japanese" theme design-wise. I will be putting drainage holes in it, or just slats across the bottom, and it will hold several pots or one vinyl rectangular planter of greenery or cotoneaster sprays with berries in the winter, and some flowing greenery and some blooms in the summer... perhaps the dragons-tooth begonia etc. in a pale shade... Perhaps the window box should be made very roughly but solidly of scrap pieces of cedar, overlapping the wood in a spare lattice, if anyone can envision such a thing... Not too large, to be unwieldy, just about average window-box size.
Sounds like a plan. I bought 6 ammo boxes that were on Craig's list last summer. But haven't done anything with them just yet. I do want to oil them to protect them from the elements. A man that works at the airport of the National Guard had them in a storage unit and decided to clean it out. Check out Fine Gardening magazine or Taunton Press as I get email newsletters of many ideas about gardens, etc. Then there are many places you can hop to as well as Better Homes and Gardens website.
The window box and supports are done by a handyman, now, but not yet installed -- I went for his suggestion for exaggeratedly big heavy supports, more "Craftsman" style than Japanese, two of them, each support made with two rectangular chunky pieces at right angles, with a curved piece on the outside joining the two pieces, and painted them the same colour as the plain dark windowbox... windowbox is dark brown, has a dark beige wooden "lip" at upper edge on ends only, and short "lip" in center... and one of the little trim pieces on each support the same dark beige... everything is so plain and '80's spare and modern out there that this window box will alleviate a rather ugly plain piece of siding, I think... pictures sometime later. I know this isn't plant-oriented, but it will be when I plant it!
