How To Design And Plant The Perfect Cottage Garden
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Tracy Foster adds height with hollyhocks, delphiniums and foxgloves. For other flower shapes try the flat panicles of achillea, ball shaped inflorescences of globe thistle (Echinops ritro) or cheerful daisy flowers of leucanthemum or rudbeckia. Most readily self-seed so you don’t usually have to re-plant them every year (like you do with annuals). While this plant is deer resistant, rabbits think they are salad. Give 1 inch of water weekly and fertilize with compost once a year. Scabiosa has a host of beautiful button-like blooms borne on sturdy thin stems that flutter in the breeze.
Unique and Creative Succulent Planter Ideas
Apple and pear trees would have been common sights in a home garden a few hundred years ago. Cider and perry were easy-to-make staple beverages, especially when clean water was difficult to come by. Plants for a Future goes on to suggest adding berry bushes, ornamental fruit trees, and nut trees, though we might suggest sticking to the more manageable dwarf varieties.
Mountain Bluet
While certain established cottage garden ideas will help you to get the overall look and feel, you should embrace the freedom to create a scheme that is truly unique to you and your home. This plant can grow to be up to about three feet in height, and it can be found in USDA hardiness zones four to nine. It does well in well-drained, slightly alkaline soil, and it will also do well in full sun or partial shade. The primrose is a beautiful plant that is found in zones four through eight. There are over 400 species of this plant that you can consider for your garden, and most of them require moist, rich soil and a lot of sun.
What is a cottage garden style?
I like to site the fence about a foot from the outside edge of the garden so that I can have flowers blooming on both sides of it. The size and shape of the urban cottage garden is often predetermined by the lot and position of the house on it. By the middle ages, around the time King Louis XIV built the formal gardens at Versailles, affluent people started growing gardens for pleasure rather than as a main source of food. For your groundcovers, the endless, tiny, snow-white blooms of sweet alyssum and its light-green foliage make are always a popular choice due to their sweet fragrance. You don't have to be a professional to design a gorgeous garden.
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The image of a resplendent, colorful garden has enticed many a homeowner to install a picket fence and a bounty of flowers in the hopes of creating such a haven. Lifestyle journalist Sarah Wilson has been writing about flowers, plants, and garden design and trends since 2015. In addition to homesandgardens.com and livingetc.com she's written for gardeningetc.com, Modern Gardens and Country Homes & Interiors magazines. When deciding how to layout a cottage garden, the trick is not to overthink it. Cottage gardens are traditionally simple and regular in layout, with a path to the door, and rectangular beds on either side packed with unrestrained planting.
You can’t beat traditional climbing roses to inject a touch of charm into a cottage garden. The perfect foil to weathered brickwork and masonry, roses are essential for completing the chocolate box look. You’re likely to be planting perennials you’ll find in pots at the garden center, Titchmarsh says.
If not, do a test as some plants are fussy about the type of soil they grow in,' she adds. You want your planting to be the star of the show rather than a bright and bold item of furniture that could detract from your beautiful blooms. Showcasing jolly spires of color in summer, hollyhocks like light, well-drained soil – which is why they are often found close to houses. It's thought that before homes were built with damp-proof courses, hollyhocks would often be grown close to cottages to help take up the water.
Create height to accentuate the vertical
But this also means they will tolerate some drought after they are established. Bergamot is one of the most rabbit resistant plants in the garden. Spent flowers are perfect for dried flower arrangements in the fall. This easy care plant withstands dry conditions, will thrive in sandy soil and does not need fertilizing.
Before you start planning out your cottage garden, finding the perfect location is essential. Ideally, you want a spot with at least six hours of sunlight each day and well-drained soil. If your property does not have an area that meets these requirements, consider growing your cottage garden in containers instead. One of the most appealing things about cottage gardens is their low-maintenance design. These are not gardens that require hours of work each week; instead, they are meant to be enjoyed with minimal effort. If you are looking for a gardening style that is easy to care for, a cottage garden may be the perfect choice for you.
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To overwinter, cut the plant back to the crown and cover with mulch. It grows a small mound of foliage the first year and the blooming spikes appear the second year. Biennials are plants which only live two years and don’t bloom until the second year. I also cut mine to the ground in the late fall when I am tidying the garden for winter. Because this is laborious on so many individual stems, you can shear them all off in mid-summer.
The beds are densely planted with aromatic flowering bushes, vines, perennials, and annuals so that no soil is visible. But it is what many of us picture when we think of a cottage style garden. The pink, purple and white blooms of phlox are another lovely choice due to the fact that they are irresistible to hummingbirds, bees, butterflies, and birds, bringing life to your cottage garden. Flash forward to today and a “cottage garden” now simply means a type of plotting many aesthetically pleasing flowers and perhaps a few herbs in a small space all jumbled together.
Add in some touches of vintage cream and set the whole thing against a neutral backdrop of green and the result will be positively painterly. As you get more confident mix in some pale greys, washed out blues and silvery foliage to add depth and complexity that will segue beautifully with your look. Today, cottage gardening is more of an ethos than a set of rules to be followed. It's about embracing nature's beauty and intricacies, rather than forcing it to conform. The beautiful, fragrant, four-petal flowers of wallflowers are loved for their easy maintenance.
Of course no cottage garden should be without pretty spring bulbs such as tulips, daffodils and crocus; plant these in October and November for guaranteed spring color. In your cottage gardens design, there should be harmony between landscaping and the architecture of the house. These are our favorite cottage garden ideas – use them as inspiration, or just enjoy browsing. We were delighted to see that one of our favorite gardeners and broadcasters Alan Titchmarsh has been sharing his advice on how to create a cottage garden, so we've added those in, too.
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