Can you see it, in the picture? Everything is leaning to the left, just a bit. The petunia flowers are all facing to the left, the flowers of the grass and even the leaves are mostly on the left half. Even the Alternanthera, the dark leaf on the right, has it’s growing tips heading to the left. Which is to the west, where all the the sunlight comes from for a few hours every afternoon.

Plants grow toward the sun, to maximize how many rays they can catch in a day. It’s a phenomenon known as phototropism. Have you ever grown sunflowers? The flowerheads literally follow the sun, moving from east in the morning to facing the west in the evening. Hmm, they must move during the night to face back to the east. Once the seeds are set and heavy the flowers only face the east.

You must have seen phototropism in houseplants and particularly office plants. Many offices have very little natural light; I’ve seen plants growing almost sideways to reach the best source of light. The best source of light is often the fluorescent lighting overhead, although it’s not a full enough spectrum to encourage flowering.

I could have balanced out my window boxed by flipping the container every week. However, it’s heavy and awkward and I don’t really mind it. It’s an annual planting to provide beauty as well as some privacy from the balcony down the way. It serves its’ purpose well. It will expire due to frost in the next six to twelve weeks, when we will not be on the balcony as much.

I am always rotating my houseplants. Those I want a little more balanced. Every time I water I rotate them one quarter of a turn. If I had an annual planting in a round pot on the ground there would really be two options. I could plant the tall thing, the grass, at the very, very back of the pot, the Alternanthera in the middle and the petunias in the front. I wouldn’t really mind if the grass is leaning over the other two. It’s a good planting for a corner. If the pot is going to be seen from all sides I would do the grass in the middle, the other two plants on the sides. This container recipe I would make an effort to turn toward the sun weekly, so it grows in evenly. Some of the grasses’ flowers would be leaning over all around, the two other plants would grow out as well as expanding to the side.

Hanging baskets not rotated are probably cascading over on side, these too can be flipped for more balanced growth. If you take a peek at your annual containers, or even your houseplants, is a little rotation in order?