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All You Need to Know About Cottage Gardens

All You Need to Know About Cottage Gardens

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One of the hottest trends in the plant world at the moment is cottage gardens.  These gardens are perfect for beginner and more advanced gardeners alike because they utilize both perennials, which are easy to grow and return every year, and annuals, which bring instant color and enjoyment to garden spaces.

Cottage gardens are known for their wild and often unruly look, but in truth, they are planned and executed to the gardeners’ desire.  Here are some tips to design and implement your first cottage garden, just in time for fall annuals.

Start Small – When starting your cottage garden, create your first plan in a small area that is easily contained.  Starting small can be the difference between success and failure.  

Choose the corner where your driveway meets the yard, or maybe a small section of your foundation garden.   

Choose Your Favorites – Since Cottage gardens are a mix of all sorts of flowers and colors, make a list of your favorites.  Research different varieties of your favorites.  You may find new colors or flower styles you haven’t seen before.  Don’t limit your plan to just one color or variety of your favorites.  You can have it all in a cottage garden!

Plant Wisely – When planting your flowers, make sure to plan for the adult size of the plant. Give room for the plant to grow and receive the light it needs and good airflow to keep disease at bay.  This will also ensure that flowers do not crowd eachother and you can enjoy seeing them all.

Mix Them Well – Cottage gardens are particularly lovely when the annuals and perennials are mixed together in unpredictable ways.  Although not a hard and fast rule, try not to let two of the same plant be next to eachother.  This will give the wildflower effect that is so prized in these garden styles.

Replace Annuals – When the annuals in your cottage garden start to wither, replace them with ones that are more suitable to the weather.  For example, pansies are a great choice for early spring, petunias for summer and mums for fall.  There are of course others available for the seasons, choose your favorites.

Cottage gardens can be a great way to bring lots of floral color into the landscape and the upcoming autumn season is a perfect time to implement them.  Planting perennials in fall is the preferred time due to the cooler weather and less dry conditions.  Annuals are happy to thrive in these conditions as well.  

If you would like a cottage garden in your landscape, but are not sure where to begin, let us help you at Guilford Garden Center with our DIY Design service, where we can work together to make a beautiful garden for your space.   

Cut Flower Gardens

Cut Flower Gardens

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The summer flowers are putting on a show before they turn to seed in autumn.  It’s a great time to harvest them for the purpose of bringing their beauty indoors.  Cut flower bouquets are a wonderful way to enjoy the flowers that adorn the landscape..  Here are some great flowers to grow for their beauty outside and in.

Zinnia – Bright and colorful, these flowers are tall and plentiful.  Cutting them back encourages double the regrowth and double the flowers!  Zinnias are best planted by seed, although they do come in annual packs as well.  If you leave the dead stalks over the winter, they will not only feed birds but also reseed and return the next year.  Zinnas prefer full sun.

Hydrangea – The big, large, fluffy blooms of the hydrangea shrub make beautiful bouquets. The shrubs are so plentiful with flowers that cutting several for a vase of water will not affect the overall look of the bush.  Hydrangea are available in bot shae and sun loving.  

Dahlia – Oh the lovely large blossoms of the dahlia.  There are so many colors and flower shapes.  Dahlias are mostly bought and planted by tubers, just after the last frost.  Most will need to be dug up and overwintered in a cool, dry place.  Although they can be tricky to grow, the outcome is spectacular with some of the best cut flowers out there.  Dahlias prefer full sun.

Peony – These spring bloomers sport huge, fluffy, beautifully colored flowers that are just begging for a gorgeous vase to reside.  Peonies are easy to grow but do suffer from powdery mildew so make sure to have treatment on hand for the disease.  Plant peonies in full sun so they can produce many fragrant and colorful flowers.  

Pennisetum – Grasses can make great cut flowers as well, adding more texture to a bouquet of blooms.  Use either the actual blades of the grass or the fluffy seed heads in your next bouquet.  Pennisetum prefers full sun.  

These are just 5 choices for cut flower gardens.  There are many more annuals, perennials and shrubs that can be used in making a beautiful flower arrangement.  Come check out our selection at Guilford Garden Center and ask one of our associates about the best cut flowers we have in stock!

If you don’t have these plants in your garden now, consider coming to our workshop tomorrow where we will be learning to make cut flower arrangements with Deep River Flower Farm!  Register Here.