Starting Fresh...Share Your Thoughts Please

I'm getting ready to start planning a new garden and would like some ideas. I've always loved a cottage garden look and feel and it's what I've always tried for...I'm not the best at planning out a garden, but have gotten a few tips along the way that have helped. (One DGer told me to think of it as a patchwork quilt, another said a Cottage Garden is just "stuff in everything you like, then stuff in some more!")

I know what plants I think of when I think of a typical Cottage Garden...but what do all of you think of? What flowers MUST be included?? What colors come to mind first?

I'm also debating whether to do a large garden or a small garden...at my place or my DBFs or both. DBF is in the boonies and there are elk and so many other critters to eat everything (did I mention I want veggies too?). Oh, decisions, decisions!

Share your thoughts on starting a new garden...share your pics if you have them. Share your fave parts of your gardens, fave ideas from mags and things you've seen, please. I'm open to all ideas at this point. It's been so long since I've gotten to play in the dirt...and both my place and DBFs are void of anything in the way of flowers (which actually makes it hard to envision a garden...never imagined that would be the case. I always wanted to start with a blank slate, now I have one and don't know what to do with it all. Be careful what you ask for I guess!)

Oh, DBF does have a pond (YIPEEEEEE!) but can you start those type of plants from seed as you do others? IDK, I've never done a serious water/pond garden before...and I need to talk to him about plants in there before I start planning anything. Tee hee hee.

I'm looking forward to any and all suggestions anyone may have to offer. Please just help me get the gardening bug started again. I need to picture this...once I can picture it I know I'll be unstoppable, LOL!

Thanks everyone,
Heather

Oh, here's a stupid question...if anyone would happen to know the answer...would a Victorian Era home have a Cottage-style Garden as we think of it? It seems to me that it would. Either that or a formal garden...which just ain't gonna happen if I'm in charge. Just.......can't.......do.........it. Any ideas or suggestions there either?

OH yes... i would think a Victorian Era home would look wonderful with a CG.

I call mine Controlled Chaos ... if there is an area of dirt with nothing there... i plunk a plant it. I've done 99% of my gardens from seed. Winter Sowing is a great way to do a whole garden with not much cash involved.

and Musts.... Rudbeckias, Echinaceas, Zinnias, Salvias, Marigolds, Bachelor Buttons, Daisys. I find most plants that attract butterflies would look great in a CG.

hope this helps...

Terese

I've always thought of a CG as having "old time" flowers in it. The garden I used to have used to draw comments from neighbors such as "are those Pinks? are those Bachelor Buttons? no one grows those anymore! I haven't seen those since I was a kid!" My neighbors were in their mid-80's. I always loved that. :)

Not just old time flowers, but more "simple" flowers too. That's not to say you can't have some pretty nice Daylilies and fancy, fancy Clematis too, lol.

I LOVE ws. I can't wait to get started. That's why I'm trying to get a plan together. To figure out just exactly what I'd like to ws and what I need to trade for, buy, etc. Somedays I think I should just ws it all and just get it over with! I'm certain I'd find a place for it all...or trade it for something...as we all do.

So, is it just me, or do most of us think of mostly pastels colors when we think of a CG? Pale-ish yellow, pinks, purple/lavender, light blues, with a few bursts of orange and red here and there. Is that just me and what I'm drawn to, or is that what most folks think of? Maybe it's the images that come up on the google search, lol.

Funny thing is my fave color is red, but I don't like red flowers. Why is that?

here's one of my faves

another bed...

another

I think a cottage garden was a garden of the working man, well woman really. As such, it was a garden from seeds and pass-along plants. We think of the gardens of England, so we think of roses and delphinium, pinks, lavender, and soft romantic colors, but face it, we don't live in England. If I ever move there I'll make a garden for their climate but in the mean time I live where I live and roses are eaten by Japanese beetles, delphinium don't like my hot humid summers, and pastels are washed out in our bright sun. The women making the garden wouldn't have the time to fight to keep keeping plants that weren't happy alive and couldn't afford them either, so they would plant what is easy for them and so do I. When the temperature is 95 and so is the humidity and it has rained in two weeks my garden needs to still look good so I use plants that can take those conditions and leave blue poppies for my dreams because they're just not going to happen in my world.

I live in a 1900 Four Square on a city lot and although it's not a cottage it's what I have and what I have to work with. The front yard is very symmetrical and has a look of formality that I would never want to create in a garden so what I did was make symmetrical beds but planted them in a very informal manner. With a small front yard that is my only full sun I used the hell strip but because form follows function I needed to leave lawn to exit two cars in this busy area.

Here's a shot in spring that really shows the shape of the beds.

I love the textures in a garden, so many of the plants I use are for their form and not just the flower. For me this means that even between the color shows the garden still has lots of interest.

In this picture it's in between the blooming of some of the showier flowers but there's still lots of interest.

Here's a picture proving I really do use strong colors.

love the Bee Balm Maoz.

Here's spring colors. Many of these plants are covered by the growth of later plants. Successive planting is a wonderful way to make use of every inch of space.

There's a lot of color here for plants that will disappear is just a short time.

Here's a picture taken in full sun in July. There's no danger of these colors being washed out.

I'm posting this old picture just to show the evolution of a garden.

This message was edited Jan 4, 2010 11:54 PM

I suggest you build your garden in stages. The first year or two a garden can be a lot of work. Last year my Dh and I took on a 60-70 foot long border at the Historic Society. A large part of the reason we were able to do this is because I'm not working and his hours were cut back to a part-time job. I could have never of taken on such a large area if I still had kids at home and was still working a part-time job and another job that was seasonal. I spent a lot of hours all summer long pulling raspberry and thistle from the bed.

We were able to do this border with no budget because of plant swaps and seeds. The only money spent was for gas to haul compost from the towns compost center and horse manure from a barn outside of town.

When I think of cottage garden I think of:
-foxglove (both purpurea and grandiflora)
-delphiniums
-phlox
-columbine
-artemisias
-lady's mantle
-hardy geraniums (I love Rozanne and Johnson's Blue)
-salvias
-catmints (I like Walker's Low)
-roses
-daisies
-campanulas
-dianthus (I like bath's pink and fire witch)

and then anything else other than tropicals added in!

Please take lots and lots of pictures along the way. I always find it so interesting to watch a garden progress. Remember to take some "before" pictures too.
And, have fun. One of the great things about gardening, is that it is fluid. If you don't like the way something looks, you can always move it. If a plant doesn't work out like you thought it would, you can trade it for something else with another Dave's Garden member. So, relax and jump in!

You might want to think about doing some winter sowing this season. It's a great way to get lots of plants on the cheap if you don't have a big budget.

This is what I needed!! Those pics are *gorgeous*...and love those have round steps too! Even just the list of flowers gets my mind going. You're 110% correct...and I remember reading it somewhere actually...that CG were mostly from pass along plants and seed swapping...but it was in the cobwebs and I never could have said it as well as you did, lol.

I'm not a new gardener by any means. I have some clue what I'm doing in some areas, lol. In some other areas I'm still very challenged. Such as successive planting, I'm still trying with that one. Some day I'll get it. A friend once told me you're not really a plant geek until you kill the same type of plant 3 times. So, yeah, I'm wayyyy past a plant geek...how 'bout you? lol

I have winter sown before, and I plan on doing that. Most of my seeds are a few yrs old so we'll see what happens with them. I don't think they'll do too bad though. I've never had bad luck with seeds being a few years old, even commercial ones. Enough have always germinated to make me happy anyway.

I agree that starting small is a good idea. We'll just have to see if I can stick to that!! That's hard to do. Budget is a big deal to me. I don't want to spend, spend, spend. The thing is I know I don't have to even if I want to go big. Winter sowing, seed swapping, buying plants at flea markets, etc. can fill a large area very cheaply...and in a yr or two it's overflowing and needs divided. I do have some mature plants about an hour away that need dug (at the ex's) that will be transplanted too. So, starting small is something I'm going to have to keep repeating to myself...

And making the garden easy to care for....ok, I'm a gluten for punishment in that area. I guess I want what I want and I suffer for it. That's an area I need to do a bit more research in. Either my garden has always been too big or too needy. I usually love it, but don't know that I'll have the time. For example I do grow Delphiniums...and they would get about 6-7 feet tall. Then I would get seeds off them and grow more, lol! Also grew Brugs a few times. Needy, needy. Had a Banana tree once. ROTFLOL!! I do think I'll go for something a bit easier in this garden...

I'm looking forward to more pics if anyone wants to share!! :)

Thanks everyone!

I don't know if this link will work, but this is one my favorite pics of my garden with scabiosa, artemisia, salvia, foxglove, phlox, & johnson's blue geraniums. I think it's fairly cottagy.

http://pics.davesgarden.com/pics/pgt_1212439466_192.jpg

Oh... very purddy pgt!!

I enjoy different thoughts and opinions on just what constitutes a cottage garden. Some of us feel it's old fashion flowers and the romance of pastels, others might feel it's a philosophy of whats easy for where you live but I think we all agree that it's a informal arrangement of planting beds. We'll leave the high maintenance formal beds for estates with a large paid staff to keep up with it.


Lovely garden pgt. I did a purple garden one year but I have a short attention span and it went in a different direction pretty fast. Seeing your picture reminds me why I liked it.


If tropicals disqualify a garden as being cottage than mine have lost the right to have the name. This is at the Historic Society and shows both canna and Brugmansia. With a name like Angel Trumpets surely it belongs in a cottage garden.

Those Angel Trumpets are lovely, and look very cottagy to me! I don't think that tropicals disqualify a garden from being a cottage garden. They just aren't what pop into my head when I think cottage garden.

Verbascum is nice too. This is "Southern Charm".

Allium and columbine look nice together . . .

Johnson Blue Geraniums with Digitalis grandiflora

This is the same area of the garden as the last but a month earlier. I like the way the columbine looks with the geraniums and dicentra.

One more, at the end of July when the phlox is in bloom. I also like the sedum when it is just in bud, and looking chartreuse . . .

tcs, I love the mix of all the colors! Just beautiful.
Moaz, It must be so nice to walk up to your front door. The mix of flowers and foliage plants is so nice - really really lovely. I also like your purple tulips with your purple allium - nice mix!

Oh, and I forgot about peonies. I love peonies in a cottage garden.

Moaz, Is the chartreuse plant that you have in your spring colors picture behind the short purple irises a type of spurge? It looks really nice, and was wondering how long it blooms, and whether it's at all invasive.
And, you are amazing at using texture and color. Just beautiful.

This message was edited Jan 5, 2010 5:23 PM

It really would be terrible to forget peonies. I added five more to my front yard last fall for a total of ten and this is a small space.

pgt and Terese have such romantic gardens that you have to admire them, but then again I've never seen a cottage garden I didn't love. I've saved a couple of both your pictures for my inspiration file.

Good eye, pgt, that's donkey spurge and it blooms about a month but the texture is good all summer. I cut the old parts of the plant back after blooming so it doesn't have a chance to reseed.

This picture is to show that some of my garden is calm and restful.

mao

OH... i just LOVE your hosta bed.

I'm still working on my front yard .... all the other shots are from the back.... way back in the field i turned into flower beds.

Beautiful pictures! I would love climbing roses over archways. I always think of trellises, benches, fences, gates, birdhouses, stone walkways with cottage gardens. The movie Cheri with Michelle Pfeiffer had beautiful cottage style French gardens with lots of roses. The movie was in English, based on a French short story about an aging French courtesan falling in love with a much younger man. Worth watching for the gardens and fashions alone.

PGT..can you show us a picture of your Dicentra and Artemisias? What color are your peonies and where do you have them planted in your flowerbeds. I must have mixed them. I sent for Adelman Peony gardens catalog and want to order Sarah Bernhardt and Kansas.. I had a Sarah Bernhardt at my previous home and it was so beautiful. Had to leave it frozen in the ground. Have always wanted a burgundy color. When do you think I should order them? When are they usually planted? I'm in zone 6b or 7..I guess the peony grower sends them when they know it can be planted in one's zone area. Were yours starter plants or bare roots?

Pippi,
If you look at my post that has a link to an older picture, you can see my silvermound artemisia in the front of my bed. The second to last picture shows one of my dicentras in the lower right from corner. Behind these I have an old fashioned dicentra that goes dormant in the summer, but is just beautiful in the spring (unfortunately, you can't see them in the picture). I don't have a picture of my peonies; they are in a different bed, and for some reason, I haven't taken any pictures yet - but they are Sarah Bernhardt! They are such a pretty light pink. No matter how hard I try not to do this, I tend to plant things too closely together, and I think that this will probably be true of my peonies, so I might be moving some eventually. I have them mixed in with daylillies, lavender, salvia, poppies, dianthus, larkspur, deep purple verbascum, and a Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora that's trained to be a tree. Almost all of my starter plants were either bare roots, or grown from seed (usually winter sown) - trying to garden on a tight budget. I planted my peonies from bareroot in the spring, but I'm not an expert. There's a great peony forum on Dave's that could probably answer your questions better than I can :)

This message was edited Jan 8, 2010 8:58 AM

I found a picture of my Dicentra spectalibis (old fashioned bleeding heart).

Another cottagy looking plant is Virginia Bluebells

Sorry, I keep on thinking of more plants. Here's Oregano "Kent Beauty". I love herbs in a cottage garden, and this one also has really pretty unusual flowers.

Can you tell that I'm looking forward to warmer weather???

Here's Salvia "May Night" with Roses (double knockout)

This is my problem area. It only gets sun during the middle of the day.