Mailbox Flower Garden Ideas

A Low-Maintenance Option for Busy Gardeners

Is this a mailbox garden, or a garden that happens to have a mailbox in it? Russian sage, black-eyed Susans, and yarrow are drought tolerant, hardy perennials that require little care in this large flowerbed.

Summer Annuals Lend Tropical Appeal

Does this mailbox garden look familiar? It’s the same property featured in the second photo of this article with some large annuals like canna lilies adding temporary drama while other plants are not in bloom. Elephant ears are foliage-only plants, while the burgundy castor bean grows inconspicuous flowers with showy red seedpods. Other look-at-me flowers that love summer's heat you might try are sunflowers or kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate.

A Stylish Container Garden Protects Your Plants

The landscape around a mailbox can face harsh growing conditions. Car fumes, radiating heat from the asphalt, and ice melting chemicals conspire to kill weak garden specimens. Turn your mailbox into a container garden with mailbox planters to lift delicate plants out of harm’s way. These pelargoniums will bloom from spring until frost suspended in wire baskets lined with coco coir.

Butterfly Landing Strip

The mishmash style of a cottage garden would look out of place with this formal brick mailbox. Although the growth habit of coreopsis is unconstrained, the single cheerful yellow tone unifies the look. An added bonus is the visiting red admiral butterflies that feed on coreopsis flower nectar.

Get Inspiration From Down Under

The kangaroo paw plant is native to Western Australia, but gardeners living in zones 9 or warmer can grow this red exotic flower as a perennial in the mailbox garden. The plants prefer cool nights, full sun, and sandy soil, rewarding gardeners with red flowers that resemble kangaroo paws.

Easy Wildflowers for a Sunny Mailbox Garden

Black-eyed Susan flowers are wildflowers that can take the heat that radiates off the road in many mailbox gardens.

You can choose from several wildflowers to get the spire-shaped growth habit like the purple flowers in this photo. Beautiful options include great blue lobelia, wild lupine, lavender hyssop or prairie blazing star.

Go Big (But Not Too Big)

Over the years, a mailbox garden may grow in size and scope to include all of your favorite flowers. If so, you may need to install a garden path to permit easy access for weeding and pruning and to ensure that the mail carrier can reach the mailbox without a scythe.

Vines Add Vertical Interest

Many gardeners take advantage of the built-in vertical structure that is the mailbox by training a vine over it. Vines like the clematis in this picture climb via twining tendrils and need something slender to cling to. You can use string to help the vine gain its purchase, or you can wrap plastic netting around the mailbox, like that used to keep birds away from crops.

Saturated With Color

Sky blue hues complement so many flower colors, but there aren’t many vigorous flowers that bloom in this shade. If you aren’t in the right growing zones to cultivate delphiniums or Himalayan blue poppies, get your perfect periwinkle in a can and paint your mailbox.

Control Exuberant Vines

It’s fun to watch a single seed become a vine that’s a garden all by itself, but without pruning, vines like this hyacinth bean will make mailbox access difficult. If you aren’t prepared to clip unruly shoots regularly, choose a smaller vine specimen, such as ‘Niobe’ clematis, sweet peas, or Black-eyed Susan vine. 

Avoid planting large vines beside your mailbox that you will have to remove after a few growing seasons, like ‘Sweet Autumn’ clematis, honeysuckle, or trumpet vine.

Stand-Outs for Shade

Many mailbox gardens stand in full sun, but gardeners with mature shade trees can grow astilbes or coral bells. Other flower choices for shady mailbox gardens include toad lilies, bleeding hearts, and impatiens.

Incorporate Manmade Features

Many manmade features in the landscape, like manhole covers or cable boxes, can be disguised with fake landscape rocks made of polyurethane. However, fire hydrants must be visible, and even conspicuous in the landscape. Excluding the fire hydrant from this mailbox garden border would have made mowing difficult, so this homeowner planted a yellow daylily beside it to eventually soften, but not hide, the hydrant.