Cottage Garden - suggestions please!

harlem

Hi,

I want to plant a cottage style garden but don't know where to start.
I'm a bit of a novice at gardening, could someone please suggest what type of plants I should use?

The garden area is approx. an acre so I'll need a fair few plants and I don't have a huge budget.

I've already started some lavender/rosemary/foxglove etc in a greenhouse as seeds and they're nearly ready to plant but beyond that I don't really know what to plant so would really appreciate suggestions!

I've attached a few pics of the kind of look I want to get but I don't what plants they are.

Thanks in advance for any advice

The Sweeper

Interesting. I currently live in a house on an acre of land where the gardens have been landscaped and the back half-acre would qualify as a cottage garden.

The leading plants in the back garden are: lavendar, climbing roses and rosemary - the lavendar is used to create hedges and islands. The rosemary is mature and works well as a hedging plant if trimmed, or a spreading shrub if allowed to go bushy. These three plants are used to 'shape' the garden.

The borders of the garden are defined with dense, screening, hedging plants - a combination of selected flowering shrubs and small trees along the fence lines to enclose the area. These are allowed to grow unfettered and create a pleasant, bushy border, with privacy from the neighbours.

There are also what I would describe as 'pillar's in the garden. The most mature of the pillars are cherry trees - there are four, dotted around the garden, creating areas of shade and definition. There are other trees - fig, plum, quince and some citrus (because we're in Australia), some of which may not be grown successfully in Ireland but you could find equivalents - you want small to medium, interesting trees - and things that bear edible items are more fun than things that don't.

Structurally the cottage garden is outlined using a variety of things - there is some old fencing here and there, some house-brick edging to garden beds, some pathways made from compacted earth with gravel over, some pathways made from housebricks laid like cobblelock paving.

The main beds into the garden are split between 'food' and 'flowers' - in one corner, there are raspberry canes and blackberry bushes. In other beds, there are herbs - parsley, sage, mint, thyme - some are allowed to self seed and run wild, providing loads of herbs and also a charming, raggle-tag effect.

Here and there are wooden and cast iron arches, some home-made, others shop bought, and all have plants trained over them - climbing roses, a grape vine, some jasmine.

There are some small patches of lawn here and there, usually with a planting island in the centre, and curved flower beds encroaching. There are engineered social areas - like a large, circular paved area, laid with patterned blocks, that will happily house a garden table and chairs for socialising around.

There are also occasional features here and there in the garden. There's an old, Belfast sink planted with strawberries. There's the remains of a pot bellied stove with a shrub growing out of it. There's a sort of peculiar conical glass structure that holds trailing plants and looks like it was knocked off from a modern art display.

That's just what ours looks like - if I was trying to achieve the effect from scratch, on a low budget, I'd accept a few realities - the first is that it's going to take me time. Then I'd start watching out for items of interest - become a skip diver. Collect plants as you can and as you can afford them.

Learn how to take cuttings from your herbs and other plants, so you can propagate at minimal cost. Personally any money I had to spend, I'd buy trees from a reputable nursery that are as advanced as I could afford. Perennial herbs will take a year or two to start looking really impressive, but trees can take five or ten years, so the head start will be more useful with those.

Also, decide what you'd LIKE in your garden. Want to have herbs and fruit and vegetables? Rather large expanses of colour?

You have a LOT of space on one acre. It will take you a while to fill it, but it could be an extremely rewarding experience.

Minder

harlem wrote: »

I've attached a few pics of the kind of look I want to get but I don't what plants they are.

If you could post some close ups of particular plants that you would like to identify, that would be helpful.

Sonnenblumen

A common feature of Cottage/Herbaceous planting is the use of self seeders to cover area more cost effectively, eg two popular examples to consider are Euphorbia and Alchemelia Mollis (Lady's Mantle), but there are many more. A beautiful eye catching plant which never fails to impress with nice flowers of pink to red blooms, also good for ground hugger and spreading (making it ideal for suppressing weeds): Persicaria - Darjeeling Red

IMO it is a a big challenge to create a cottage/herbaceous garden that can look good duriung the dormant season. Most tend to be dull and dormant, so bear in mind some evergreen stock to provide a minimum level of all year round structure and visual interest.

Cottage gardens are also by their nature more demanding on time and maintenance.

The Sweeper

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

A common feature of Cottage/Herbaceous planting is the use of self seeders to cover area more cost effectively, eg two popular examples to consider are Euphorbia and Alchemelia Mollis (Lady's Mantle), but there are many more. A beautiful eye catching plant which never fails to impress with nice flowers of pink to red blooms, also good for ground hugger and spreading (making it ideal for suppressing weeds): Persicaria - Darjeeling Red

IMO it is a a big challenge to create a cottage/herbaceous garden that can look good duriung the dormant season. Most tend to be dull and dormant, so bear in mind some evergreen stock to provide a minimum level of all year round structure and visual interest.

Cottage gardens are also by their nature more demanding on time and maintenance.

True - ours has very little in terms of flowering interest, but a local cafe in the town here backs onto a cottage garden that covers about 10m2. They have some of the simply most magnificent flowers in that tiny space and it provides a riot of colour from Spring to Autumn, and the only thing that keeps it pretty during the winter is the perennial herbs, because they come into their own then.

More even than the flowers themselves is the contrast plan - vivid, cerulean blues against towers of scarlet flowers, bright, buttery yellows against deep green foliage, rows of acid pink next to deep purples, and the entire garden thrums with the buzz of bees in the summer.

(And in Autumn it's full of suspicious looking elderly ladies sipping coffee and knocking off seed heads into hankies when they think nobody's looking.)

harlem

Thanks a mill for the advice all - minesajackdaniels your garden sounds gorgeous, I love the idea of the sink & stove planted with shrubs!

Sonnenblumen I'm definitely going to look for the Euphorbia and Alchemelia Mollis you suggested, anything that keeps the weeds at bay is all good by me!

I've tried planting a few types of holly bush in the hope that i'd have some colour in the garden in the winter, but unfortunately there's loads of rabbits in the garden and they ate them all!

bbam

Crocosmia, particularly the lucifer variety give a striking splash of colour, they also multiply well...
Any of the Hardy Geraniums, good range of colours and full sun/shade also..
Lupins are a great herbatious plant, look great in all gardens..
For shrubs, buddlia are great for a range of colour, scent and butterflys, they also fill out well to give a mature look quickly, hebe shrubs are nice also..

Pretty much all of the above are easily propagated to fill in a garden on the cheap...

Planning a new garden is great... even the digging is strangely satisfying

The Sweeper

Is budlia one to be wary of because if given free rein it'll take over the place?

bbam

Minesajackdaniels wrote: »

Is budlia one to be wary of because if given free rein it'll take over the place?

We have no problem... have about 4 colour varieties.
They're great to quickly mature... then you can hack them back and they'll regrow..
We've only had 1 self seeded... in a pot !! which was handy

We're moving soon si I've been taking cuttings to propagate as many as possible... have about 10 as various stages..