Bold, bright colors bubbling with joyful tangles of flowers are the theme when it comes to cottage-style gardens and landscapes. Cheerful, informal design, packed with a casual abundance of plants, makes a cottage-style landscape always feels like home. Plus, creating a cottage-style garden requires very little labor — a big bonus for busy homeowners.
The exuberance of a full-fledged cottage garden enchants and enhances a home’s curb appeal. Curving pathways lead to abundant flowerbeds. A relaxed atmosphere prevails. Often, a picket fence functions less as a corral and more as a beautiful prop drawing attention to a charming home surrounded by lively, easy-to-grow plants.
Mother Nature rarely creates spaces quite this gorgeous, but with very little work a cottage-style landscape will appear perfectly natural. The overall effect is one of simplicity, easy elegance, and riotous bounty.
Although a cottage-style garden may appear to be slightly out of control, it does indeed follow a few simple rules. Use these stress-free landscape design ideas to create a look that will make any home seem like a sweet cottage.
Curving Paths and Lines
Cottage gardens originated in Europe where peasants grew their favorite plants — beautiful as well as practical — in small spaces. For your cottage garden, always select plants that grow easily in your home’s area. Focus on growing self-seeding plants — this will make your garden even less labor intensive, allowing it to propagate on its own. Incorporating plants from cuttings or divisions that originated with friends and family keeps with the spirit of cottage gardens.
Place plants as close together as you can without causing them to smother each other. (This style of planting is particularly good at crowding out weeds.)
You need only accomplish two annual cottage garden to-dos. First, add compost to your garden in order to help the soil get enough nutrients and to support your large plant population. And second, use organic matter to mulch your beds (it will break down more easily, adding nutrients to the soil; plus, mulch will help with weed control and moisture retention).
Avoid placing plants in regimented lines or patterns and let them grow unencumbered; cottage-style landscape design relies on plants appearing to tumble about with abandon.
Tending Packed Beds
Cottage-style landscape design is relaxed and loose, not rigid or formal — making this garden style perfect for both inexperienced gardeners and green thumbs alike. To enhance the air of informality, curve the pathways and flowerbed edges throughout your landscape. Curves entice the visitor to move farther into the garden to see what is around the bend and discover the mysteries hidden inside. Encourage plants to drape over the edges of the beds, further softening the lines.
Old-Fashioned Plants
A cottage garden should express both joy and purpose. The original cottage-style landscape designs placed beautiful bloomers of varying heights right next to native plants, herbs, and ornamental vegetables.
Color schemes follow no rules, varying from a soothing pastel plan of pinks, blues, and yellows to an intense riot of reds, oranges, purples, silvers, and more. (If you crave more uniformity, consider matching plant hues to your home’s exterior color scheme.)
Plants with multiple petals, such as roses and peonies, are cottage-style favorites, and they have the added benefit of sweet scent. Contrast heights within beds by using spiky classics such as foxgloves and delphiniums.
Annuals, with their constant blooming ways, are perfect for cottage beds. Consider varieties of zinnia, moss rose, marigold, salvia, and nasturtium for ease of care. Verbena bonariensis, with its airy habit, fits anywhere and is also a prolific reseeder.
Rely on perennials with a long season of interest or texture, such as fuzzy lamb’s-ears, hardy geranium, lady’s mantle, and sedums, to carry from one year to the next.
Incorporate shrubs or small trees throughout your home’s cottage garden. A panicle hydrangea, Japanese maple, or ornamental dwarf conifer adds dimension and year-round “bones” to the beds.
Avoid going too far afield with exotics or high-maintenance plants. Tropical flora look interesting and perform well in many areas, but they don’t particularly fit the cottage style. Plus, they require much more work than hearty, self-seeding plants.
Most blooming plants rely on full or partial sun to perform well. If you want to grow a cottage garden in a shady location, you may need to tone down your expectations of possible color schemes. Don’t despair; a variety of fine shade plants will give plenty of the texture and informal grace you desire.
Romantic Looks
Even if your home doesn’t have a cottage-style thatched roof, you can still gain a romantic atmosphere with the right props. A low fence, such as a classic white picket or wrought-iron fence, offers a sense of enclosure and heightened style.
Add a vine- or rose-covered matching arbor or trellis to connect unrelated areas, such as a front yard to a backyard.
To create vertical interest, place an obelisk or tuteur inside a flat expanse. If you have a large garden, space these structures along alternate sides of a pathway so they appear to draw you along.
Relax in outdoor furniture that looks homey and comfortable on your lawn, not tired and rundown. Country-style painted and weathered wood chairs, antique metal shellback chairs, or a cute bistro set work well in the design scheme.
Meaningful Decor
Decorate your home’s landscape with beloved items that carry emotional value and a patina of age, such as the lightning rods from your grandfather’s farm or the rusty little wagon your mother always used. Don’t overdo; a few ornaments placed properly can go a long way.
A cottage-style landscape should feel good to you, not like a burden (your home’s yard and garden don’t necessarily have to look like a magazine spread). Choose what you love, let the garden build and grow on its own, and beauty will follow.
Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens. Used with permission. ©Meredith Corporation. http://www.meredith.com. All rights reserved.