Container Plants in a Business Place

Container Plants in a Business Place

Flower-filled window boxes, tubs and planters are today an attractive feature of more and more places of business, both small and large. Shopping centers, department stores, dress shops, banks, insurance companies, hospitals, art and specialty shops, grocery stores, filling stations, even factories are now decorated with container plants. Restaurants, particularly at resorts, hotels, motels, and tourist homes also employ this method of attracting business.

Europe Takes Lead

In this aspect of container gardening, Europe has taken the lead. Bank buildings of London, Dublin, Edinburgh, and Paris feature window boxes of azaleas in spring, geraniums in summer, and chrysanthemums in fall. Pink and blue hydrangeas, favorite flowers in Paris, bedeck the facade of the showroom of the Renault automobile on the Champs Elysees, as well as the fashionable restaurants and department stores that line the broad boulevards.

In London, Austin Reed's Department Store favors apple-green window boxes with multicolored azaleas, and the Bank of Nova Scotia at Waterloo Place features deep rose hydrangeas. Other English cities follow the pattern-in Bath, for instance, where Colmer's Department Store has set up boxes of red zonal and pink ivy geraniums at the edge of the marquee. In Switzerland, hardly a dress 01 watch shop is overlooked and there, I remember the Lu-zerner Kantanalbank in the town of Horw, where red geraniums crept through the iron bars in front of the windows just as they do from balconies all over Spain.

How Boston Does It

Boston recently took up the practice. Three years ago, the marquee in front of Symphony Hall was lined with boxes of geraniums and English ivy to announce the opening of the Pops Concerts, which to Bostonians heralds the arrival of spring. On Beacon Hill, the Bellevue Hotel has planted boxes of Japanese yews and geraniums along the low balustrade at the front. For fifteen years, Filene's Department Store, one of the largest in the city, has maintained boxes along the marquee that covers an entire block. In spite of adverse growing conditions, winter winds and hot summer sun, hemlocks, Japanese yews, pieris, rhododendrons, and English ivy do remarkably
well. Replacements are made when needed and sometimes artificial flowers are introduced for color.

In the past, real flowers were planted among the evergreens and still are on occasion but they must take a terrible beating. To water the boxes, a special system has been installed, with a separate valve for each unit.

Fashionable Newbury Street has been beautified with boxes and planters in front of the small smart shops. Sharaf's Restaurant has a raised bed of red geraniums and white petunias around the sign post in the sidewalk. In summer, the large plate glass window is removed and the inside transformed into a tropical garden with flourishing hibiscus, tree fuchsias, philodendrons, coleus, geraniums, ageratum, morning glories, marigolds, wax begonias, periwinkle, and lobelias. Under this arrangement, plants are protected from strong wind and heavy rain.

In Towns

Business places in towns also realize the value of container plants. In Woodstock, Vermont, window boxes of pink geraniums enliven the facade of the Elm Tree Press. The Grille Restaurant has two large north-exposure boxes, with luxuriant geraniums, dwarf marigolds, and vinca. In Beverly, Massachusetts, the Commodore Restaurant is enhanced with eleven artistic boxes, each with a different combination of plants. Dark blue boxes and shutters offer contrast to the white structure.