32 Appealing Cascading Flowers for Window Boxes

Want to enhance the curb appeal of your home without doing much? Just grow these Cascading Flowers for Window Boxes!

Cascading flowers for window boxes are often known as spillers, because they spill out of the boxes, offering a striking appearance to your windows. We have prepared a list of Cascading Flowers for Window Boxes based on the full sun or shade they love to thrive in!

1. Nemesia

Botanical Name: Nemesia strumosa

Sun Exposure: Full sun

Nemesia flowers are two-lipped; the upper carries four lobes, and the lower carries two. They are available in a rainbow of colors, offering your windowbox vibrant and lustrous outlook!

2. Impatiens

Botanical Name: Impatiens walleriana

Sun Exposure: Shade

Impatiens are truly amazing, they grow in colors like white, red, pink, violet, and purple and love the shady location. They blossom from spring to summer, however, in warm climates, they appear year-round.

3. Pansy

Botanical Name: Viola tricolor var. hortensis

Sun Exposure: Full sun to part sun

Five-petaled weird-looking pansy flowers with heart-shaped leaves are going to fill your window boxes with many colors while spreading mild sweet fragrance in the air in fall, winter, and spring.

4. Begonia

Botanical Name: Begonia

Sun Exposure: Partial sun to shade

Dangling flowers of Begonia with variegated leaves are prized for their miniature rose-like appearance, carrying pink, yellow, orange, red, or white hues, it blossoms from summer to fall.

5. Lantana

Botanical Name: Lantana camara

Sun Exposure: Full sun

Lantana must have stolen your sight with its lovely appearance in many tropical gardens. The vibrant and mildly fragrant flowers are best to brighten up your window boxes all around the year, especially if you live in a hot climate.

Check out how to grow and care for Lantana here!

6. Million bells

Botanical Name: Calibrachoa

Sun Exposure: Full Sun to Part sun

This classic spiller plant flowers in different shades of violet, blue, pink, red, magenta, yellow, bronze, and white from summer, fall, and surprisingly in winter too.

To know how to grow Petunia in containers, click here! 

7. Moss-Rose

Botanical Name: Portulaca grandiflora

Sun Exposure: Full sun to part sun

The beautiful flowers have needles like succulent leaves come in pink or peach hues that look like tiny roses in vibrant shades. They blossom from summer to fall.

8. Geranium

Botanical Name: Pelargonium

Sun Exposure: Full sun

When overgrown pelargoniums do cascade down and there was no reason we could be missing these sun-loving flowers.

9. Forget Me Not

Botanical Name: Myosotis

Sun Exposure: Full sun to part shade

Cute looking, blue flowers with yellow ‘eyes’ of forget me not disperse pleasing fragrance, transforming your little window box into miniature heaven.

10. Fuchsia

Botanical Name: Fuchsia magellanica

Sun Exposure: Full sun to part shade

Neon tricolored, bell-like flowers, of red-purple hues, are famous for attracting a hummingbird. Fuchsia flowers look exceptional in hanging baskets and window boxes.

11. Mandevilla

Botanical Name: Mandevilla sanderi

Sun Exposure: Full sun

This ‘thriller and spiller’ climber produces five-lobed blossoms of red or pink color, carrying a rich ‘golden throat’ inside.

12. Lenten Rose

Botanical Name: Helleborus orientalis

Sun Exposure: Partial shade

The Lenten roses is not a rose, but a hellebore hybrid. It flowers in red, pink, and yellow colors from winter to early spring and is rich in nectar.

13. Aptenia

Botanical Name: Aptenia cordifolia

Sun Exposure: Full sun to partial shade

Also known as Heart-leaved Aptenia, these magenta-red flowers bloom over heart-shaped green leaves in the mid-day sun throughout summer and spring.

14. Purslane

Botanical Name: Portulaca oleracea

Sun Exposure: Full sun, part sun, shade

Purslane leaves make look like a relative of the jade plant. Its leaves and flowers are edible & nutritious, too, and can be used in salads as well!

Check out our article on growing purslane in containers here! 

15. Sweet Alyssum

Botanical Name: Lobularia maritima

Sun Exposure: Full sun to part sun

Tiny flowers of Alyssums come in abundance in shades of pink, white, or violet hue, spreading honey-like fragrance in the air. It blossoms from spring to fall in cold climate and winter and spring in a hot climate.

16. Trailing Snapdragon

Botanical Name: Asarina

Sun Exposure: Full sun to partial shade

Its flowers are tubular and dragon-shaped of purple, red, and yellow hues. They grow through spring, fall, and winter, looking like a vibrant carpet on your window box. This plant needs a large container.

17. Bidens

Botanical Name: Bidens pilosa

Sun Exposure: Full sun

Fill your window box with the alluring golden-yellow, daisy-shaped Bidens, having a dark eye at the center. Its heat and drought tolerant nature make it a good choice for window boxes.

18. Lobelia

Botanical Name: Lobelia

Sun Exposure: Full sun

Lobelia flowers in blue to purple cardinal flowers over bronze edged green leaves. This sun-loving plant grows in the cluster, and surely one of the best cascading flowers for window boxes.

19. Trailing Geranium Ivy

Botanical Name: Pelargonium peltatum

Sun Exposure: Full sun

Trailing geranium grows ball-shaped trailing flowers in summer. This perennial has pink, red and white flowers that look great hanging down from window boxes.

20. Bacopa

Botanical Name: Bacopa monnieri

Sun Exposure: Full sun to part shade

Bacopa has earned this ‘spiller’ title, thanks to its naturally tumbling out of the container attribute. It’s a vibrant flowering plant for summer and fall.

21. Creeping Zinnia

Botanical Name: Sanvitalia procumbens

Sun Exposure: Full sun to part shade

Creeping Zinnia acquires small petals and brown ‘eyes,’ resembling mini-sunflowers with beautiful orange or yellow flowers.

22. Wedelia

Botanical Name: Sphagneticola trilobata

Sun Exposure: Full sun

Wedelia is a perennial herb, known as “Creeping-oxeyes.” Many consider this prolific groundcover a weed. Grow it in your windowboxes for a never-ending show of yellow flowers in your balcony or patio.

23. Cypress Vine

Botanical Name: Ipomoea quamoclit

Sun Exposure: Full sun

Ferny and threadlike leaves of Cypress vine look fairylike with star-shaped crimson flowers during summer and fall, attracting sunbirds towards it. It grows well in length and spreads vigorously, 6-8 feet, so use larger window boxes.

24. Trailing Chenille

Botanical Name: Acalypha hispida

Sun Exposure: Full sun

It is also known as Kitten’s tail, because of the tail-like reddish flowers on the heart-shaped leaves over the trailing stem. It blossoms in spring and summer.

25. Skyblue Clustervine

Botanical Name: Jacquemontia

Sun Exposure: Full sun to partial shade

As the name suggests, the sky-blue color blossoms with a bright, flirty eye in the middle of the flower look graceful on this climber. It flourishes from autumn till spring in warm climates.

26. Firecrackers

Botanical Name: Russelia equisetiformis

Sun Exposure: Full sun to partial shade

Firecracker flowers in red, pink, white or lavender colors resemble bursting firecrackers which makes them very showy for the window boxes. They bloom from fall till the summer.

27. Climbing Bougainvillea

Botanical Name: Bougainvillea glabra

Sun Exposure: Full sun

Climbing Bougainvilleas have vigorous growth, so growing them in the window box is a little tricky. Use a large window box to plant them.

Check out how to grow Bougainvilleas here! 

28. Wishbone Flower

Botanical Name: Torenia fournieri

Sun Exposure: Full sun

The Wishbone has exotic looking, deep violet-blue or purple flowers, with light shade at the center. It blossoms from spring to summer, and in fall from spring in warm climates.

29. Roses

Botanical Name: Rosa

Sun Exposure: Full sun

Roses are a perfect choice for window boxes. Miniature roses are great for this purpose, check out our article on how to create a miniature rose garden on a balcony!

30. White Gaura

Botanical Name: Oenothera lindheimeri

Sun Exposure: Full sun

Gauras have nectar-rich white, pink flowers that blossom throughout the summer when most of the other flowering plants become dormant.

31. Nasturtium

Botanical Name: Tropaeolum

Sun Exposure: Full sun to part shade

Funnel-shaped flowers in pink, red, and yellow hues of Nasturtium are popularly used for window boxes. The edible, bright flowers taste like mustard greens and can be used in salads too.

32. Verbena

Botanical Name: Verbena bonariensis

Sun Exposure: Full sun

Offering a beautiful accent for window boxes, the saucer-shaped flowers come in appealing shades of cream, pink, lavender, and violet.