May 132022
Growing an English Cottage Garden

Last year, I decided that I wanted to transform our front garden into an English cottage garden. There are already many beautiful established plants, and really all that is needed is to sow annual seeds and add a few perennial flowers! However, on our property, growing an English cottage garden has one main obstacle – slugs and snails. I have to be selective about what I plant, otherwise the tender leaves will be decimated. For example, there is no point in me trying to grow hostas or delphiniums. When I tried to grow dahlias, the bulbs were devoured. It will be a bit of trial-and-error, but I’m hopeful that I can gradually transform our front garden into a charming entangled oasis of popping colours and waving stems.

English Cottage Garden Design
English Cottage Garden Design
What is in the Cottage Garden Already?

I’m grateful for the fact that we moved in to a house with an established garden. There are so many lovely mature plants which will give the English cottage garden its fullness and whimsy. The plants that were originally in the garden are:

  • English Lavender
  • Clematis (black prince – dark purple)
  • Climbing Rose (salmon pink)
  • Daffodils, snowdrops, and grape hyacinth
  • St John’s Wort (large bush)
  • Bergenia
  • White Alliums
  • Euonymus
  • Lemon Verbena
  • Hyacinth
  • Hydrangea
  • Mock Orange
  • Yucca
Garden map from previous owner
Garden map from previous owner
Front Garden 2019
Front Garden on move in day December 2019

Since we moved in, we have added the following:

  • Cherry Tree
  • Salvia
  • Guernsey Lilies
  • Gladiolas
What have I planted in 2022?

Cottage Garden Seeds

  • Lupin
  • Snap Dragons
  • Cosmos
  • Stock
  • Silver Leaf annuals
  • Sweet peas

All of these are annuals, except for the lupin. In the future, I’d like to plant oriental poppies and anemones to give the garden more colour in late April – early May. At this stage, the early spring bulbs are finished, but the roses and lavender haven’t yet started blooming.

What Died?
  • We removed the overgrown ceanothus (California lilac)
  • African Daisies
  • Coral Bells
  • Dahlias
  • French Lavender
  • Heather

We removed the ceanothus a month after we moved in because it was overgrown and blocking a lot of light. It also didn’t have curb appeal because the inner branches were dead. Thankfully, we still have a ceanothus in the back garden for us and the bees and birds to enjoy. Sadly, the African daisy died after summer 2020, and I really don’t know why. The lavender and heather didn’t get enough light, and the dahlias didn’t have a chance with all the slugs.

African Daisy
RIP African Daisy
Cottage Garden Inspiration

In addition to being mindful about pests and amount of sunshine, I’ve also taken inspiration from the videos below, the first of which ranks popular annual cottage garden flowers. I’ve mentioned Siloe’s videos before on my blog, as he does fantastic documentaries about the history of vegetables. His video design and editing skills are superb, and I got so many useful tips from these two videos – do check them out!

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