How To Create a Dreamy Cottage Garden (with video tour!)
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My grandma (aka “Baba”) had the most beautiful backyard gardens and she knew ALL THE THINGS about plants. I remember going out there when I was a little girl and she would take me around to every garden and tell me about each one. Sunset cosmos, peonies, lilacs, and lilies of the “alley” are what I remember the best. I have no doubt that my love for all things gardening started with her. As well as my grandpa…who taught me how to plant rows of corn super straight. Their passion flowed down to my dad, who always grew a huge garden when I was little and I have so many happy memories in that garden. The legacy and love of gardening has always been strong in my family.
After we got married, we rented and my growing endeavors were confined to houseplants. But my neighbors were always growing something beautiful in their yards and I knew when we had a home of our own that I wanted big gardens. For a short 9 months, we rented the cutest hobby farm outside of Boulder that came with gardens… beautiful curved permaculture style beds and an orchard. Here is an old photo of me with the girls by those gardens. My dear friend Jen came over one day and she grabbed the seeds that were sitting on my counter and she walked me through how to plant lettuce….and when I saw those first leaves come out of the ground I thought, “This is it. This is what I want to do forever!” That same friend gave me her personal copy of Gaia’s Garden…and I poured over that book...so in awe of this idea of “home-scale” permaculture. Crazy what these little acts of kindness can create in someone’s life…I’m so thankful.
We thought we were going to purchase that farm, but God had other plans. We ended up moving to the mountains…and our house was at 7500 ft and gardening proved challenging, especially with our frequent travel. After we sold that home, we traveled for many more years in the RV (for a cumulative total of 10 years) and while I would occasionally buy flower pots to put outside the rig, I longed for the day when I could dig in the ground and plant seeds again. When we moved to Texas, I spent hours upon hours at the plant store…learning how to grow in that crazy zone 8b heat. It was also a bit strange that I couldn’t put a shovel into the ground without hitting solid rock a few inches down. It definitely differed from my childhood in the Midwest where the black soft dirt was plentiful. I had a small keyhole raised bed and I loved experimenting and growing there. I had a huge collection of cactus and succulents and they brought so much joy!
When we bought our farm in South Dakota in 2020, I couldn’t WAIT to get my hands in that dirt. But we moved in late September, so we had to wait until the next spring to start creating everything. While Matt worked on remodeling the house, I spent the winter dreaming and reading and planning. I especially loved the Back to Eden documentary…such a revolutionary way of gardening! I spent hours watching Jess at Roots and Refuge Farm and Shaye at The Elliott Homestead. By the time spring rolled around…I was READY! We decided on the “no-till” or “no dig”. Check out Charles Dowding’s site for more info! No-till is a quick and easy way to make gardens…veggie or flower. And it worked really well for us…especially because the existing ground needed some love. We did some soil testing and found it was lacking many key nutrients. It turned out great and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to get started gardening. Let me tell you how we did it!
First, we put up a fence! Living in the middle of the country, we have lots of deer, rabbits, and other little animals who would love to snack on the garden. Next, we laid down cardboard everywhere the beds would be. We used rolls of cardboard, but you can of course use boxes saved from shipments or get them from appliance stores! Make sure you overlap the seams of the cardboard 4-5 inches…we did end up having some grass come through on ours. We also had grass come up in the bed areas in certain places. Still trouble shooting that, but hoping we can get rid of it in coming years. We laid landscaping fabric on the paths and then laid pea gravel rock on top of the fabric.
We filled the beds with well aged sheep compost from a neighboring farm and then topped it all off with natural wood mulch after the flowers and veggies were planted. Depending on the bed, the depth was anywhere from 4 inches to 12 inches deep. While I was planting, if I came across a plant that had a deeper root structure, I would pile up a hill of dirt and then plant.
We used rocks and downed trees that we found on our property for all the borders, and Matt borrowed a skid steer to bring in all the compost and the rock. We now have our own skid steer and it’s the BEST thing we’ve ever purchased for the farm! On the right hand side of the photo above, you can see some existing rhubarb and there is asparagus and coneflowers in that bed as well. We decided to leave that and just add to it. The previous owners lived on this farm for 60 years and she was an avid gardener. Most of her beautiful gardens are behind our house…I promise to give you a tour of those as the summer goes on! I’m counting the days until the poppies bloom!
Now let’s talk about the BEST part…the FLOWERS! I wanted to give you my list of “must-have” cottage garden flowers! There aren’t rules when creating a cottage garden. It’s meant to be WILD and FREE! Even though I have every color in my garden, some of my favorite gardens have just purple/white/green or pinks/oranges! Just go with what you love. Be sure to check your zone though…what grows here, might not grow where you are. We are in Zone 4b…where the harsh winters make all the flowers even brighter! There are some benefits to those negative temps! Here are some of the flowers we used (there are too many to list, but these were my favorite!)
FLOWER LIST
Coneflower
Sunflower
Dahlia
Snapdragon
Mullein (southern charm is my favorite!)
Cosmos
Yarrow
Zinnia
Fennel
Silver Lace Vine
Black Eyed Susan Vine
Perennial salvia
Foxglove
Phlox
Russian Sage
Hollyhocks
Lavender
Delphinium
Catmint
Creeping Thyme
Roman Chamomile
Agastache
Roses
The majority of this garden is perennial (that means it will come back year after year!) and then I filled in with my favorite annuals. A word about spacing…I plant VERY close together. Way closer than the recommended spacing…but remember, I said there are no rules! :) I did that because I wanted the garden to look full and flowy in the first year. I know that eventually, I will need to prune and split plants, but a cottage garden is meant to be a little “unruly”. You just want to make sure that the plants aren’t fighting for space/nutrients/sunshine.
Where did I purchase all the plants? Everywhere! Our local flower nursery, Lowe’s, Lewis Drug, the farm store and pretty much anywhere I saw pretty plants I liked! LOL! I direct seeded the zinnias and large sunflowers, but all the rest were already started in pots. Matt would see my backing the car up to the garden to unload and would say “I thought the garden was done!”. And I would say “The garden is NEVER done my dear!” LOL!! I can’t wait to start another garden closer to the house this year, along with some new flower boxes for the barn and house. Eeeeep! So fun. I have 140 Zinnia plants growing under lights right now. Can you guess my favorite flower? ;)
I get lots of questions about the rainbow flags that we have hanging all over our property. I have used one Etsy shop in particular for 10 years…but she recently stopped sewing. Check out this one or this one instead! Ok…are you ready to see it?
I could spend all my waking hours in this garden…it was an absolute JOY last summer. Matt built me a sweet little patio to sit and watch the sunset. And when the veggies started to ripen…that was even more fun! I could stroll through the flowers to grab a handful of chocolate cherry tomatoes and pick lettuce and peas and radishes for my salad. There is just nothing better than that!
Making bouquets makes me giddy with excitement…I’ve even thrown around the idea of starting a cut flower business. But that’s for another day. For now…I will just make bouquets for fun and watch all the episodes of Growing Floret. Erin is the best.
I have several of Stephanie Burgess’ art poles for our gardens! They add such a fun pop of personality. I also have rock sculptures and mirrored globes and wind chimes…the possibilities are endless!
Here is a little photo gallery of flowers and pretties I took in the garden…enjoy! Scroll through using the arrows.
Thanks for checking out my garden! I’d be happy to answer any questions you have…and I hope you’ll be inspired to build your own cottage garden too!
P.S. Be sure to check out my post with my top 3 favorite gardening YouTube accounts!
