Ideas for Plants Around Mailboxes

Clematis

• Clematis is the queen of the garden vines, according to Iowa State University. These plants grow in three varieties, including spring-blooming vines, fall-blooming flowers and vines that produce blooms from spring until fall. The plants prefer to grow in full sun with roots shaded by a thick layer of mulch and low-growing plants. These vines require very little care and will produce flowers that climb up your mailbox trellis year after year. In sunny gardens, plant sun-loving herbs such as chives or lamb's ear around the plants.

Morning Glories and Moonflowers

• Morning glories and moonflowers are distant relations that grow well in poor soil conditions. In fact, morning glories often fail to produce flowers in rich soil. These plants will often wind around a mailbox post and may even cover the box. You can grow morning glories and moonflowers together so that they use the same trellis; the morning glories will blossom during the daytime, while the moonflowers will come out at night. Good plants to mix with morning glories and moonflowers include native plants such as purple coneflower, black-eyed Susans and sedge grasses. These provide a visual contrast to the heart shape of the morning glory leaves and the trumpet shapes of the flowers.

Evergreens

• Evergreens provide year-round color and shape to a mailbox garden. Many evergreens produce tiny white flowers in summer and red berries in winter. These trees and shrubs are also drought- and heat-tolerant, important considerations when planting a bed near an asphalt road that will blast heat in summer. Many evergreens will also remain healthy when soaked with saline water that drains from a road in winter. For planting near a mailbox, purchase an evergreen based on its size when fully grown; never use evergreens that will grow taller than your mailbox. Yew, holly, boxwood and other low-growing shrubs are good choices because they will not grow too tall and disrupt your view of the street. Dig your evergreen's planting hole at a distance from the mailbox that is equal to half of the plant's diameter when it is fully grown. The evergreen should just touch the mailbox pole when it is fully grown.