Do you have a cottage garden and if so what plant do you have?

[KiteKit]

Just that really. We live rurally and I always had a dream of having one of those romantic cottage gardens. we have lived here 10yrs and only got the money to start looking at the garden about 3yrs ago. We only have 1/3rd of an acre and most of it is grass and stone walls and old trees. We created one long bed at the front of the house, it is also about 4ft wide (or deep) so actually fecking huge when we started trying to fill it with plants. We did not have the finances to just kit it out at a garden centre so slowly over the past 3 yrs we have worked on it, buying plants in adli etc when they were the right ones. It has been slow progress.

Our only rule is that they have to be perennial plants - plant once and no more, dh hates annuals, they look so beautiful but then they die and you have to do it all again the next year.

We have lupins, foxgloves, tulips, muscari, primroses, alliums, peoney roses, helebores, hyacinths, snowdrops, cowslips, round box's to intersperse, campanula, bay, strawberries, blueberry bush, dog roses, rambling rose, agapanthus, hollyhock (may have dies) hydrangas and lots of acquilegia's, delphinium (may have died) calla lillies, giant daisies, lambs ear

It still looks a bit sparse in places - what else would you recommend?

Please tell me about your gardens!

Golden rod and scabious are great

Thank you mangoJuggler I will look them up now

Hardy geraniums and dwarf fruit trees. Small daffodils naturalised in grass.

I have googled them and love both - will def look out for them next.

Have acouple of hardy geraniums. Don't have any daffodils but saw a lovely planting idea this year. We have wide stone walls with earth on top and I saw similar very densely planted with what looked like minature daffodils.

I think part of our problem is that we don't have enough volume of each type of plant to make it really lush like images in magazines. Don't have the cash to keep filling one single flower bed. I am hoping they will bush out and fill ip the space iykwim?

They will bush out and you can propogate many of them by seeds, splitting or cuttings. It just takes a couple of years!

It will look sparse now. Mine is lush with plants from May onwards but looks a bit bare now, even though in a month the beds will be several feet high with flowers everywhere. Cranesbill (the native hardy geranium) is lovely. Aside from your list, I have Margeurites, and lots of roses. Scabious is lovely in a cottage garden, cornflowers, hostas. Wallflowers and lots of spring bulbs. I also have a lot of fruit, (apples of different types, pears, damsons, plums, raspberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and cherries!!) and grasses (I love grasses). Buy things in a minimum of three, rather than three different plants. Climbers give height and colour at different levels. Clematis has beautiful seed pods as well as flowers.

I would look out for open garden events nearby (NGS and other events). They're a great way to get inspiration and they usually have wonderful plant sales too. A great place to get lots of plants cheaply.

thank you all! Your input is much appreciated. SirVix I had just been thinking about buying 3 of each rather than 3 different types each time. Would you plant all three near each other then? I think that would really help with the impact.

I shall make a list of all the plants you have suggested and start looking out for them from now on.

If any one one would like to share a pic of their garden in bloom I would be delighted.

many thanks

I agree about 3s (or even more, but it must be odd numbers). I plant them near each other if they're small (eg lavender) but quite far apart of they're big (eg dogwood, lilac bushes, philadelphus), perhaps at equal spacing in a large bed.

I'm growing Echium Pininana - it's astonishing large spikes of flowers 2 m high. I've grown from seeds last year and they should flower this summer.

Large giant Verbascum also a biennial like foxglove - easily grown from seed the year before flowering.

Also acanthus has a large footprint, architectural blue green leaves and purple flower spikes

Also Hosta - experiment and if the slugs don't eat them you are very lucky - great leaves and ground cover, love'em

They'll grow and you can split them. We've been in our house 5 years and I had to split everything last autumn as the bed was pretty much root bound. This autumn you should be able to split some of your perennials

Cornflowers,yellow loosestrife,peony,roses,lavender,bluebells,snowdrops,daffs,winter aconite,michaelmas daisy.

Feverfew,hellebores,sedum,astilbes,aquilegia,primroses,violets.

I'm into year six and lots of things have decided to take over.

It takes awhile for plants to work out whether to live or die and the hardy ones just go nuts then.

Thank you all....Girl we saw one of those Echium plants last year and it was quite literally amazing! We are on the top of a hill and it can be a bit windswept here, would you need a nice sheltered place to grow them?

I spent a load of money on 3 beautiful hostas for the tops of one of the stone walls last year (the wall is about 4ft wide) and the slugs ate them to nothing despite dh being like a slug vigilante...no sign of the hostas this year so I am assuming they are missing in action and gone for good

Valerian.
Fennel and calendula and love in a mist are annual but will self seed.
Red hot pokers and crocosmia -particularly crocosmia lucifer.
Lily of the valley and solomons seal.
Borage -again self seeds.
Lungwort,comfrey,bergenia.
Japenese anenome,sweet rocket,oriental poppy,pinks.
Chinese lanterns.

Pulsatilla! My fave (and I only know the name from a clever MNer who ID'd it from a picture I posted.

I also have a beautiful plant called hardy plumbago (ceratostigma plumbaginoides) it comes back every year with green to rust coloured leaves and lovely blue flowers. I underplanted it will bulbs so it doesn't look too bare. It covers a fair amount of ground.

I am very impatient and I want all these wonderful plants growing NOW

Seriously, if anyone has any photos for inspiration that would be great. I seriously love looking at garden pictures and dh thinks I have turned into some sort of old lady when I take gardening magazines to bed!

A lilac tree would be lovely, they are fairly quick-growing too

Lavendar, lavendar and more lavendar
Roses

Look on www.crocus.co.uk for inspiration

Go to local fetes and bazaars and you can often get plants really cheap.

Lavender even!

have you got phlox? They're very easy and last a while once they're out. Pink, white and lilac look lovely together.

Yellow loosestrife.
One of my favourites and establishes itself fast.

Japenese anenome -another favourite.