A Room With A View of Late Summer

I refilled the second story window boxes on the back of my home with autumn flowers today. The back of my home is rather plain by comparison to any other side, and so I mounted a couple of flower boxes along the bases of the two main second floor windows some years back. My goal was to spruce things up with fresh flowers. I imagined brilliant red geraniums and cascading mounds of cheery nastursiums. But my home was built in the early forties and the sashes are original to the house and a royal pain in the ass to open and close requiring the removal of the storm windows everytime I needed to water live plants. The romance soon wore off!

My solution? Silk flowers! They are so realistic, and from the distance of the ground they give the effect of lush flower boxes without any of the maintenance issues. They hold up to both rain and snow. And when it's time to change, I just chuck the old ones, they're cheaper than live plants. And right now both Michael's Crafts and JoAnn's Fabrics have them on sale for half off. I almost went ahead and got my Spring plantings, too!