Garden Design for Small Spaces

Cottage Garden In the front yard of houses in England and Holland, there is often an overflowing flower garden that cheers the soul. This is the smiling cottage garden, a happy place, which may be in front, or back or all around the whole property. It has no rules, but contains whatever the owner decides. English ones are blousy, Dutch ones are neater. Cottage gardens have an abundance of flowers, mixed with shrubs and trees, often vegetables and herbs too. Although it seems casual, it is lovingly and carefully thought out. Each plant is placed to show off to best advantage. A constant delight, it changes with the seasons, never finished and never perfect. Old fashioned perennials form the backbone, probably because they faithfully return each year. There are always a few rose bushes, some choice flowering vines like clematis and carefully pruned wisteria as well as challenging plants like delphinium. It may have azaleas and there must be lilies. Some plants are be grown for fragrance like roses, sweet autumn clematis, annual stock, nicotiana, alyssum and Viburnum carlesi bushes. If you have a scraggly front lawn, and have an old privet hedge you are tired of pruning 3 times each year, consider ripping out the lawn, cutting the hedge down to 12 inches, and turning it into a cottage garden. If you have a skinny perennial bed that just never seems to make it, consider enlarging it with shrubs and flowering trees and rose bushes and annuals into a wonderful mass of abundant bloom. If your vegetable bed is boring, add some things you love. No where is it written that asparagus and lilacs can't coexist. If you want lots of flowers, you need 5 hours of sun. Keep the tall shrubs and trees on the north side and low plants on the south. Stepping stone paths through the beds makes life easier. A brick path, or terrace may be incorporated, or a herb garden with segments divided by bricks . Birds and butterflies will come. There may be a garden house, or a work shed. And there will surely be a compost heap, because cottage gardens are for real gardeners.

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