I really am trying to get some of my gardenbeds even more cottage garden looking by mixing a variety of flowers. I have a tendency to get carried away with certain flowers and just buy more and more of them. That is why I have the rose crazies and the daylily crazies.
But this year I am trying dahlias again, which I haven't had for years. I also am getting more spring bulbs. Already ordered for the fall. I would like to add more varieties of sedum and coneflowers. Also sticking with what works well, that is planting really cottage garden annuals like lots and lots of zinnias. Also cosmos, snapdragons and impatients. Well, I don't know how cottage garden impatients are but they work really well in those shadey areas and never quit blooming.
More Cottage Garden Flowers
Rita, my sister-in-law's sister had a field of dahlias and while visiting, she invited us to stop by and cut some to take home. You remember Tiny Tim's song "Tiptoe through the tulips?" Well, here's 3 grown women tiptoeing through the dahlias, like kids in a candy store. The next Spring my brother bought me a bunch of dahlia bulbs from his sister-in-law's dahlia field. They were the dinner plate size and oh, what beauties when they bloomed! We followed my brother's instructions and dug them up come Fall before the ground froze, dried them out and put them in spahngum moss or something like that for the winter inside our laundry room. Planted them back out come Spring but decided it was too much trouble to dig them up each Fall. Hmp! mistake..they froze and rotted. Last time we grew dahlias.
I saw a bulb basket in a catalog or online the other day. Might have been LeeValley Tools/gardens. It looked like a plastic basket that you plant bubls in that have to be dug up before winter freezes them. I thought how perfect that would be for Dahlias..Check out that website to see if you find it. I could work. You just place your bulbs to be planted in there, cover with soil and I would think you need to place some type of marker somewhere so you'll know what color the bulbs are/what kind. Maybe lay a plant tag inside the basket, inside plastic or foil wrapped, using a paint pen to write your information so when you dig up the basket, you'll be able to identify exactly what color and type bulbs. Also place a marker by the plant . Hope the way I explained it isn't confusing.
I rarely dig tubers, try to stay awau from things that need lifting each fall and replanting in the spring. But I do have cannas most years and sometimes remember to dig them. Now I am going to have these very nice dahlias. When I do dig, I just wait until the soil dries naturally and then take the tubers and put them in flat sweater type plastic boxes with no lids and store them in my basement. It did always work out fine.
The common name for impatience in England is Busy Lizzie, and they're every bit as much of a cottage garden flower as foxgloves, daisies, or hollyhocks.
Thats good to know. I plant at least two flats of impatients each year. You can't beat them for shade and they never stop blooming.
The thing is that I have really been thinking of more diversity. And by that I don't mean that I want to buy lots of different types of plants. Not thinking of the one of everything way of doing things. I have a tendency to get the same things over and over again. That of course is because I really, really like them. My garden is loaded with daylilies, lilies and roses. Now I have discovered iris so the iris crazies joins my other plant crazies.
But am trying new things. This spring started with violas and really love them. Ordered Geums, another new to me plant. Added different types of Sedums that I hadn't had before. Planing to sow more types of zinnias than ever before. Doing more varieties of cosmos. Trying annual poppies, new to me.
Going back to some things I had in the past but haven't been in the garden the last few years. Like the cannas I just planted and the Dahlia Tubers I ordered. Sowing sunflowers and mexican sunflowers this spring. I didn't have them last year.
That is another thing. I like to bring back things that have been in the garden for years and then for some reason, are left out for other years. Like I grew zinnias for years, skipped afew years and started growing them again. Same thing with the four o'colocks.
I am doing the opposite of you this year. I'm actually trying to cut back on the number of different plants that I have so that it looks more organized. Sometimes when I look at my garden from afar, there are so many plants to look at that I get dizzy.
Of course even as I write this, I am thinking about the new plants that I added because I had to try this one and always wanted to grow that one. . . .
How's this for variety. July 2009.
That looks awefully good to me. I love lots of color and full beds of plants.
Rita,
This is the backside of my walkway.
And this is the view from the bottom
And yet another one walking up to the front door. In my garden, you are surrounded by flowers!
Forgot the picture!
Perfect!!!! Just the way I like things. Jammed with flowers for lots of bloom. Bet you could still fit some annuals in between. I don't see that you need to change a thing.
pennefeather
I love that look. I live on a farm with a biiggg lawn and have beds scattered around. If I ever have a smaller property i would love for it to look like that. But I am getting to old to do much changing. Love all the pictures.
WOW! pennefeather and Indygardengal! Such lovely gardens! We have so many hungry deer, that my gardens have never looked that full. This year I am starting a lot from seed, and I hope that it all won't be deer food. Yes, I use repellant, and use deer resistant plants, but when they are hungry enough, they will even eat a poisonous plant such as monkshood. One year, I saw that mine was eaten, and then I saw a dead deer on the road...I do not know if it was the same one...
Well, time will tell...and I lot of hard work after these late snowfalls. I do not recall having snow so late in the season since I have moved up here 23 years ago. I am the eternal optimist..I guess you have to be, if you are a gardener, as there are so many challenges for us.
This picture was from April 20th!
Happy gardening, all!
Evelyn
Evelyn are you in the mountains? I am in zone 5b and I certainly hope we are through with snow but think I would rather have snow than frost. Frost will kill!! I am waiting a couple more weeks to set out my annuals and I am getting anxious.
Here's another picture from last or the year before not sure which. Checked the year on the picture it is 2008. Doesn't change a whole lot. Plants are maybe bigger than a couple of years ago.
Evelyn,
I start a couple of hundred annuals every year. I do it because I refuse to spend a lot of money one flowers, and it's fun. This year, I am starting geraniums, cosmos, tons of petunias, two types of grass, gazania, gloriosa daisies, shastas, agastache, three types of zinnias (liliput, swizzle, and cactus), loeblia, sundance gaillardia, yarrow, golden goblen, and oasis salvia. I always end up with more than I can use.
pennefeather ~ If you really need a place to send your surpluses...
Indygardengal ~ Yes, we are in the Sierra foothills west of Lake Tahoe, and southeast of Placerville, which is 20 "mountain miles" away...the nearest town, or city, actually. It has grown a lot since I have moved here. We are at 3500' in elevation and it does snow every year, but it has never snowed in April, since I have lived here, and it is hot all summer with scant rainfall, if at all.
This year, for the first time, I have begun to start many things from seed. A lot of things that have tiny, tiny seeds, like lobelia and petunia...
Mainly, in the past I have direct sown seeds like poppies and also larger ones like marigold, calendula and four o'clock. Now in addition to the ones that I will direct sow are cosmos, both direct and started in seed beds then transferred to cell packs, alyssum, lupine, impatiens, snapdragons, basil, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, parsley, lettuce, broccoli, helichrysum, ageratum, heliotrope, phlox, verbena, and others that I have not yet started, such as zinnias and marigolds, though it is time that I started them....So, I suppose will be the question will be, when will I finish the weeding, and also planting out the orders that have already been placed? I already received one fairly small order from Bluestone Perennials and I just potted them all up and put them in the nursery area, since it was to snow the next day. All of this late snow has interrupted my plans, and I am afraid that it may turn hot before I get all of them in the ground, or potted up, if that is what they will need. I have a prepared bed waiting for new things, but that will also need another weeding. The compost pile is soggy to say the least. I suppose I will have to purchase some of that as well, since I will not have enough to go around this year. Well, every gardener has their challenges...don't we...??
Evelyn
Wow you are going to be knee deep in gardening for a while. I got an email from Bluestone yesterday that my order was shipping. Should be here the first of the week.. Funny thing is I didn't print it and I don't remember everything I ordered. I love surprises
Veronica
Veronica, let us know what your Bluestone surprises are!
pennefeather, my garden looks alot like yours. I too would love to organize a little more, fewer plants, more repeitition of plants. I'm going to try and add some shrubs. I have shrub envy, but it is so hard for me to picture them ....
Its gorgeous!
I love it too. That is a look I really enjoy everything mixed up. Just goes to show that in gardening its hard to mess up. And if we do we can move things around next year. I am already thinking of seed to order for next year. I have lots of plants I started from seed most of them are annuals; only one perennial a verbascum. I have several plants but so far they are very small. The catalog said they would grow and flower from seed the first year. We'll see.
Yes, I'll let you know what is in my order when it arrives.
Veronica
There is one spot in my garden I just love and hope I never inadvertently move the plants.
The purple coneflowers blooming with the tall lilies.
Beautiful
I don't know if I have a cottage garden or not; it is slipping into its third summer, and
I have been starting seeds and buying since Feb 08.
This year I have started dozens of delphs of various sizes and kinds. I also have new
hollyhocks I started as well as the old ones from last year. Verbascums Olympia is the
backgrown, followed by sunflowers, then hollyhocks, then tall foxgloves and delphs. I started many, many tall dahlias too. The middle and front will be followed by all kinds of perennials and annuals.
So that my flower beds don't look like a carnival, I will sow white annuals: snapdragons,
marigolds, cosmos, etc. hoping the white ties thing together a litte.. I bought seeds of
white delphs, foxgloves, and columbine with an eye to next year
Unfortunately, health issue have cropped up making things much more complicated.
Sounds like a lovely cottage garden to me.
To me also.
You know Gloria I have been thinking I need more white flowers in my gardens also. I have some Boltonia that should bloom this year and have lots of alyssum ws'd and coming up as volunteers everywhere. Guess I'll see where i need to add it as the season progresses. I have been thinking about some white columbine as everything I have blooming now is blue or purple.....
I really like the idea of adding a lot of white flowers as well. I started a bunch of white gazanias because I needed lower flowers at the head of the walkway, and I think that the white has such a nice clean look. I also have some pink and white zinnia swizzles, but now that I am thinking about this, I will start some white zinnias as well.
I have a lot of white petunias that I started to put in baskets near the front door. I usually line the front brick stairs with pots of red geraniums. In another month, I should have plenty of flowers blooming.
I took some pictures of the garden this weekend because I thought that it looked nice even though nothing is really blooming now. All the perenials are up, and I can imagine how they will look in another month. Everything looks so healthy.
I always line my garden with white alyssum, although I'm trying to get away from that now. I've started some short perennials to try and grow a perennial edge.
But here is an old picture of my garden with the white alyssum edge. Even though the garden is packed with lots of different plants, I think the white edge gives it some definition.
This pic is from 2005 and i've posted this pic in several different places and my garden does not look like this anymore ... too many years and changes later ... but the white edge still works.
Yes, I can see that white really works!! I have been thinking blue all along, but white and silver are what it needs.
I believe we may had another frost last night. I am almost afraid to go outside and see the devastation. People are actually moving away from here because the 90 days of snow on the ground made for a boring and isolating winter to say the least and for
a terrible l loss and cost for the horse and cattle farmers.
It does look wonderful.
gloria, I did try to put in a second edge that year with Dusty miller and a purple petunia.
Thanks for the praise. I should have left well enough alone. My garden has never looked that good again. sigh ......
I have a White Flower Border..actually just a garden bed...and I took down the White Daisy Garden. That one has a long history, but the chapter has now ended, as I am incorporating those flowers into the White Flower Border, and possibly some into the "Cottage Garden Border", if there is such a thing...I will have to weed it again before putting the plants in there, as I have been amending it since last fall, and possibly more will go in there as well as my hard clay soil need a lot of work. I need to move the white lavender ~ I suppose I should call them oxymorons...but they have beautiful flowers, but they do not really add much to that garden as they are scant by nature, so they need relocating to a nice hot, dry spot with leaner well-drained soil to be better appreciated, as their fragrance is among my very favorites. Maybe this thread should be called white flowers, as that seems to be the direction in which it is going...in a very natural, organic way...
evelyn, I love white daisys. I had a huge die off of the daisys 3 years ago. The Alaska have come back from seed, and I've started a couple from seed last year and this year. I hope whatever did it is gone.
I love daisies from seed. Last year I had about six types. This year I am starting 3 more types. I will stop then (until I get Old Court variety.) They are so pretty and have such nice forms. Swallowtail seeds sold me Exhibition and maybe Crazy Daisy; I just love them too. Seeds are the way to go if you are frugal like I TRY to be.
I had the Alaska Shasta Daisies years ago and just loved them. They died out during some of my hardscape projects, too much moving plants around. I remember I started them from seed. They were really easy.
Yesterday in the nursery I bought Snowcap dwarf Shasta daisies. In fact I planted them today. As soon as I saw them at the nursery I know I was going to buy them.
Wild ox-eye daisies...
