Pretty fall window box and container ideas

Hello and welcome to September -- one of my favorite months of the year! Our weather has been so lovely the past few days and looks great for the next couple of weeks. 

I usually wait just a tad longer to change out our window boxes and planters, but some of them were looking awful, so I decided to get started on the fall versions. 

Our window boxes never took off like usual this year. :( We had a deep freeze one night late in the spring and even after covering them, they were zapped. The potato vine never did well and the petunias didn't grow much at all. 

I gave up on them a couple weeks ago and stopped watering because they looked so bad: 

The petunias filled in much better than this most of the summer, but overall it was nothing like usual. 

This is how they usually look: 

Since our temps are looking great for at least the next two weeks, I decided to start working on the fall window boxes. 

I have a few standards for the planters this time of year, but I found some new favorites as well! You can't go wrong with different varieties of kale: 

They also come in green versions, but I love the deep purple tones in these. I grabbed these two versions for our window boxes. Kale are GREAT because they are so full -- you'll want plants that take up a lot of space to help save money. 

Mums are a given, of course! They are perfect for the pops of color you'll want in your planters. I also love Coleus -- there are so many beautiful options. I couldn't find any Coleus small enough for the boxes unfortunately.

This year I wanted to include something different than usual. The key to exterior planters is to keep in mind filler, spiller and thriller. For fall, filler would be your more compact items like mums and kale. Thriller would be taller items like grasses (which I don't usually use in the window boxes). 

I loved these pepper plants that would have worked well for the thriller as well -- great pops of color and tall enough to stand out!: 

Vines or asparagus fern are great for the spiller, but I don't find they do as well in the cooler months around here. 

This time I went for these gorgeous "hot pops purple" peppers -- they are so full and spill over the boxes beautifully: 

The little peppers start yellow and orange and turn into the dark purple. I saw some that turned bright orange as well. 

I combined those with the kale and orange and purple mums: 

The purple mums haven't opened yet, which is a good thing! I'll have to dead head all of them to keep them blooming throughout the season. 

Here are all of the plants I used for these fall window boxes: 

 They don't have a ton of color just yet, but they look SO much better than before!:

I plan to add some mini pumpkins here and there throughout soon as well. 

They will all open up and fill in well -- I'm excited to see the color combo blooming together: 

I've gathered a few more fall planter/window box ideas I loved from some fellow bloggers to give you inspiration for fall planters. 

Carli added some beautiful fall touches using plants from around her yard -- brilliant!:  

Made by Carli

This autumn planter is a perfect example of filler, thriller, spiller!: 

Hearth and Vine

And I loved the height and fullness of this one from House of Hawthornes: 

House of Hawthornes

I LOVE the dried hydrangea blooms in this gorgeous fall planter!: 

Momcrieff

I may have to add some to our boxes and planters -- and cross my fingers they don't blow away!

If you have a covered window or porch, you can combine faux with your real plants: 

Oh My Creative

If you're looking for something a little softer than a traditional planter, I love this idea of using a basket for your fall porch: 

The Honeycomb Home

Beautiful ideas, right? 

I will share an updated pic when our blooms start to open up and fill in over the next few weeks. Do you have a favorite addition for fall planters or boxes? 

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