The best home offices are rooms that function brilliantly as workspaces and feel like a room you’d want to be in regardless. Interior designer Rachel Blindauer shares exactly how to design one.
Nantucket Window Boxes: How to Get the Island Look at Home
by Rachel Blindauer
Walk any lane on Nantucket in July and you will see why the island is famous for its window boxes. Against weathered cedar shingles and crisp white trim, boxes spill over with flowers on houses, shops and tiny ‘Sconset cottages alike. They make a house look cared for and welcoming, which is the best thing curb appeal can do. I photographed these on the island, and each one teaches a different lesson you can bring home, wherever you live.
Why Nantucket Window Boxes Look So Good
The secret is the backdrop. Silvery shingles and clapboard are neutral enough to let any flower color sing, and white or black trim frames the picture. Notice how this cottage repeats the purple and pink of its window boxes in the hydrangeas below, so the whole facade reads as one composition. If your exterior is busy or warm-toned, simplify the planting so it doesn’t compete.
Recipe 1: The All-White Box
My favorite Nantucket boxes stay with one color. An all-white planting reads as elegant, glows at dusk and works on every house color. This one layers white petunias and small white blooms with soft silver leaves and trailing greens that spill over a black box beneath black shutters. The silver foliage is what makes it look expensive: it adds texture and keeps the white from feeling flat.
Recipe 2: Moody Burgundy and White
For a deeper, more dramatic look, let foliage do the heavy lifting. This shop box pairs dark burgundy leaves with white blooms blushed pink at the center, a few purple salvia spikes for height and trailing greens for softness. Dark foliage stays handsome all season, even between flushes of flowers.
Recipe 3: Chartreuse and Peach
Chartreuse is the color that makes a box glow. Here, golden creeping jenny cascades down the front of a white box while white petunias and a few soft peach blooms fill the top. It is a cheerful, sunny combination that pops against gray siding and old brick.
Recipe 4: Bold Red and Coral
When you want a box that stops people on the sidewalk, go bold. Red coleus anchors the center, coral geraniums and pink blooms fill in, airy purple verbena floats above and chartreuse trailers soften the edges. Paired with dark green shutters and a white picket fence, it is classic island color at full volume.
Design It Like a Pro: Tall, Full, Trailing
Build each box in three layers. Place something upright at the back center, such as angelonia, salvia or an ornamental grass. Fill the middle with mounding bloomers like petunias, geraniums or sweet alyssum. Let trailing plants such as creeping jenny, verbena or sweet potato vine spill over the front edge. Aim for an even balance of flowers and foliage, and step back as you plant so it doesn’t get too busy.
Match the plants to the light
Check which way the window faces before you shop. South-facing boxes need full-sun plants like petunias and geraniums. North-facing boxes want shade lovers like begonias and coleus. East and west windows give you room to experiment.
Soil, Water and Feeding
Use a quality potting mix, never garden soil, and make sure the box drains well. Expect to water at least twice a week, and daily in a heat wave; wind dries boxes out quickly. Starting in early July, feed every two weeks with a liquid fertilizer so the flowers keep coming.
Choose the box itself
A painted box that matches your trim or shutters looks built-in rather than added on. Size it to the full width of the window, and mount it on sturdy brackets set a few inches below the sill.
Keep It Going Through the Seasons
On the island, summer boxes run roughly from Memorial Day to Columbus Day. When summer annuals fade, swap in mums, ornamental kale and grasses for fall, then evergreen boughs and berries for winter. Replacing a tired plant beats nursing it along.
A beautiful window box is one of the simplest ways to make a house feel loved. Pick one color story, plant in three layers and give it a little care each week. For more of the island, read my Nantucket designer’s guide.
Bring the Island Home
Nantucket style doesn’t stop at the window box. Natural textures like seagrass, rattan and woven wicker carry that relaxed, sun-washed feeling indoors. Here are three of my favorite pieces for a coastal entry or living room.
Sorella Seagrass Woven Round Mirror
$399
Sanctuary Candle
$45
Hamptons Wicker Scallop Console Table
$1,893
SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE
THE PIECES RACHEL RETURNS TO, AGAIN AND AGAIN
