5 Rules for Cottage Garden Design
There Are No Rules
That was easy. Old fashioned cottage gardens were jumbles of the favorite plants or the plants the poor farm wives could find from shared seed or cuttings. There was no "design" as such but simply masses of plants the gardener loved.
And that's the most important "rule" - grow the plants you love to grow.
Grow Lots of Them
Cottage gardens have that "blowsy" look, that way-too-crowded look about them as plants struggle for space and light.
And that's the biggest mistake beginners make; they don't plant enough plants. On average, figure each perennial will occupy 2 square feet. Now some will only take a half square foot and some will take the entire garden but "on average" when you're planting, that's pretty close to what you're going to want to grow.
A garden planted like this will start to come into its own and look great in its second year. In its third year it's going to look superb and you're going to have to start dividing and moving plants around by year 4 as you discover which are spreaders in your garden (it varies by garden and area) and which are "stayers".
My "cottage garden" looking east
Don't Be Afraid To Move 'Em
Perennials are meant to be moved. My kids used to tell me I should plant all my perennials with wheels on the bottom to make it easier to move them around.
If a plant isn't doing well in one area - move it. If you don't like the color combination you have in one area, move them.
With my tongue firmly in my cheek, this is what is known as "gardening". And it's the interesting part as you struggle to design and redesign your garden from year to year to get it the way you want it to look
Color Combinations
Which leads me directly to the great bug-bear of beginning gardeners and that is the way we combine our plants to get great-looking combinations. First thing to understand - those old cottage gardeners in their poverty weren't designing. They were simply loving the plants and abundance of blooms. Do the same and don't get hung up on all the garden books and magazine articles talking about great combinations and design.
Design and combining plants really started with the Edwardians in the UK only a few short years ago but there's this expectation your garden isn't good enough unless it's been "designed". Right - mine never have been and I tend to chuck plants in willy-nilly rather than really work out a design beforehand. But these gardens never fail to get great comments from visitors.
Combine Them All
When I say "all" I mean roses, shrubs, bulbs (both spring and summer blooming), perennials, and annuals. Anything that blooms goes into a cottage garden. Do not get hung up on only having perennials in it. The most famous of perennial garden designers, Gertrude Jekyll who started this entire "cottage garden design" phase, used to use annuals in her gardens to carry them over the non-blooming time. You do the same.
And those my friends are the 5 rules of cottage garden design.
My "cottage garden" looking west
