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When winter sets in our window boxes look pretty shabby. Do yours? Winter is also the time many of our birds that do not migrate become little beggars and foragers. Winter is also the time that we help out our feathered friends by trying to keep our bird feeders filled for them.
I like color in my window boxes and it is never there after the first hard killing frost so the first thing I do is to clean them out.
One of our window boxes run the length of our big dining room window and in front of that window out about four feet from the window stand a bird feeder on a tall post.
The light bulb came on one day. Why not try to combine the two? It really was not possible, but the idea still stayed and I finally figured out how I could feed the birds and put some color back into my window boxes each winter. So when I clean out the window boxes I now take out the dead plants and leave a good deal of the dirt in them.
Nearby in our woods there are some seeded branches that I can snip off without hurting the trees. I can also cut some autumn branches with their colorful leaves. Along the way I can usually collect some big turkey feathers. Around the green house are usually some good clay or terra cotta containers that will weather the winter and we always have a birdhouse or two in the making. I save some big sunflower heads before the birds get to them plus any other “stalky” plant that I think will dry well and give some personality to the window box and perhaps some shelter or food for the birds.
Now I get artistic and start to arrange these items in my window box making sure I center or put slightly off center my largest item. I start to tuck in my pots or terra cotta containers, now I add my berry or seeded branches, artistically adding my autumn leaves, a feather here, and a feather there. Some times I have to invert a flower pot and push it into the dirt of the window box and then using some double sided artist sticky tape I put some on the bottom of the bird house and then press the bird house on top of that inverted clay flower pot. I now add those sun flower heads or whatever else I think the birds will like.
It looks very autumn-like, very colorful and pretty and welcoming for the birds.
The other clay pots may hold things I add during the winter such a pieces of stale bread or old cake or muffins for them to peck on. Perhaps I will add pieces of suet or peanut butter treats. These containers empty quickly and must be filled in order to bring our feathered friends back again and again. However, the window box maintains its charm until spring arrives and I am able to refill it with our summer flowers.
“Tread the Earth Lightly” and in the meantime… May your day be filled with…Peace, Light and Love,
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Author Bio Box: Arlene Wright Correll
 For more gardening or cooking information click http://www.learn-america.com/
To see Arlene’s Gardens and to read her gardening diaries and to take a walk through her pictorial garden or click on Arlene’s Books where you can download or buy her gardening & cook books, including her new book, “The ABC’s of Wine and Beer Making”. Many of her articles written for Greenthumbarticles have paintings she has created of the subject and they can be seen at her “How to Do It” site. Remember to check out her artwork, especially of her fruits and vegetables. Many of her paintings are sold internationally and many of her works of art have been reproduced on note cards, post cards and other functional items and you can get Giclee prints of her artwork starting as low as $11.89 Arlene says, “All my royalties from the sale of my books, art, etc. go to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and I thank you for visiting my sites.”
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