How To Create A Cottage Garden Border

Cottage gardens are also likely to make use of self seeding plants such as foxgloves and aquilegias which pop up spontaneously around the garden or in cracks in paving adding to the informal look.

How to create a cottage garden border. A cottage garden s greatest appeal is that it seems to lack any conscious design. Sow easy to grow long lasting annuals and wildflowers including calendula cornflowers nigella and. This informal crowding of a wide variety of plants is a signature feature and the mix of perennial and annual flowers with vegetable and foliage plants twining around each other and competing for attention is what makes a cottage garden so fascinating.

But even a cottage garden needs to be controlled. When done well cottage gardens seamlessly blend colors textures forms and fragrance. Shrubs lend themselves to front of borders or low hedges that edge pathways.

Cottage garden style is relaxed colorful and fun says darrell trout avid gardener writer and lecturer whose own garden reflects his passion for easy growing beauty. There s no concern for spacing no worry about planting in odd numbers no graduations in height. Cottage gardens are made up of a mix of colours as opposed to a strict colour scheme.

Traditionally hollyhocks were planted against the cottage wall as before houses had damp courses the plants helped draw moisture out of the wall and keep the foundations dry. Today they immediately give the feel of a cottage garden whether against the wall or towering out of a border. A fragrant addition lavenders are particularly at home in cottage gardens.