Window Boxes: Indoors & Out [Paperback]

James Cramer (Author), Dean Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2004

Container gardening is one of the hottest trends today. Why? Because the recent availability of plants with great genetics makes container gardening a sure thing for everyone. Then there's the market--it's full of containers that are low cost and low maintenance but have high visual appeal. And finally there are the container gardens themselves, which are easier to maintain than in-ground gardens, especially during drought years.

Window Boxes offers dozens of inventive, innovative ideas for window box gardens. Once thought possible during only the warm spring and summer months, the art of creating (and the pleasure of admiring) window boxes can now be enjoyed every month of the year. Moving season by season, Cramer and Johnson show you how to use interesting indoor and outdoor containers and bold plant mixes that will keep your home colorful and visually stimulating all year round. Every gardener will appreciate the authors' inspired ideas and hard-working advice, as well as the dazzling full-color photographs in these pages. Window Boxes is a one-of-a-kind handbook that combines container gardening with flower arranging so that you can create glorious mini-gardens for outside and inside your home.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Window boxes no longer must be the sister of the white picket fence. Calling such diverse receptacles as pumpkins, gourds, hats, a broken earthen pot, and even eggshells to service, authors James Cramer and Dean Johnson, in Window Boxes: Indoors and Out, redefine the concept of windowbox, and generate a lot of beautiful ideas in the process.

Window boxes can serve many purposes, from homes for a kitchen herb garden to grand, overspilling fountains of trailing plants and flowers. And when there's a paucity of garden real estate, lack of time to tend a full-size garden plot, or an off-season hankering to simply grow something, window boxes provide creative outlets and solutions. Watching a forced amaryllis gracefully bloom in an antique planter in January or starting seedlings in a copper box inside a sunny window in early spring can quell the gardening jones of many a hibernating green thumb and help get a jump on the growing season.

Along with ideas for window-box plantings for every season and many holidays, from May Day boxes popping with pansies and lilies to Christmas boxes fragrant with tiny pine trees and demure snowdrops, Cramer and Johnson also detail how to make and decorate many boxes (although beginners may need more detailed instructions than the brief ones given here), including a copper box, a Victorian box, a terrarium box, harvest boxes, and many more. With this helpful, evocatively photographed handbook and an open mind, creating window boxes will become part of the gardener's and the interior designer's repertoire all year round. --Stefanie Durbin --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Inside Flap

When design magazines want new and fresh ideas, they turn to James Cramer and Dean Johnson. In Window Boxes, Indoors and Out, these two gardeners, designers, artists, and stylists bring a wealth of talent and the freshest eye to the close-up pleasures of window boxes. The book spans a year of invention and innovation at Seven Gates Farm, the authors' nineteenth-century homestead and studio. The results are inspired ideas, hard-working advice, and more than 150 dazzling photographs of these delightful still lifes.

Given four seasons in which to flourish, this once spring/summer-only pleasure goes well beyond traditional garden planters and herb baskets. Found objects are given new life as containers for these beautiful tableaux, and everything from wreaths and swags to simple rustic groupings becomes design elements outdoors and in. A full source guide for locating containers, plants, seeds, bulbs, and flowers rounds out this exceptional volume.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (February 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158017518X
• ISBN-13: 978-1580175180
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,651 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Interior Design > Windows

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful window boxes, November 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Window Boxes: Indoors & Out (Hardcover)

I received this as a gift and plan to give it to friends. Not only are the writers, clear and concise, but the photographers captured the essence and beauty of every arrangement. Each window box was a delight and no season was forgotten. This is truly a favored coffee table book. book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Video Review, March 9, 2010

By 

BeachBrights "beachbrights blogspot" (TX) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Window Boxes: Indoors & Out (Paperback)

Length:: 1:54 Mins

A note about my video review:

1. I decided to do a video review so that I could give others a glimpse inside the book. One of the things I hate about ordering books online, is not being able to flip through them. I hope this review helps!

2. I love the creativity in this book.

3. My one negative is on page 26. I love the potting table with greenhouse top and wish Dean (Author) would have included instruction on how to build this. I LOVE IT!!

Enjoy-

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendid- absolutely breathtaking, September 21, 2004

By 

L. Nedelman (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Window Boxes: Indoors & Out (Hardcover)

Mary Sears did a stunning job writing this quaint charmer about window boxes. A lover of window boxes myself for many years, I found this book both helpful and inspiring. Truly worth every cent.