Getting small garden in terraced house landscapeded, I'd love a cottage style , what do I ask for?

[Starzinhereyes]

We are getting our garden properly landscaped in the summer. We have a good sized patio, a patch of grass which we are replacing with artificial as the drainage is terrible & we have dogs... We are getting a pergola on the patio... Would love some high beds to plant shrubs & flowers, they need to be high to keep our little dogs out.
I love seeing the birds come into the garden so would love a feature to entice them in.. Our budget is 7k.. I'd like it to look very neat but the cottage style natural & unstructured..
Any suggestions as to what to ask for or what accessories to buy would be greatly appreciated!

how much work do you want to do on upkeep of the garden? most gardening is not just about paying someone to put in a garden once. It is about going out for an few hours each week (or more) to do weeding, pruning and general care.

For birds, you want a squirrel-proof feeder + a bird bath + a tree with open branches that they can perch in.

Please don’t get plastic grass, it’s terrible for the environment and if your dog sees on it it will stink. You could have some thing other than a lawn.

How much sun does it get, what’s the ph of the soil, and is it clay?

Typical cottage garden plants are hellebores, daffodils, primulas, muscari, hyacinth, crocus tulips and iris in spring. Alliums, peonies, roses, Scabiosa, hollyhocks and delphiniums in summer.

Take advice from your garden designer on technical things, and look on Pinterest for colour inspiration. Enjoy!!

I think the chances of you attracting birds in a small space with dogs is probably not good. I would replace the plastic grass with some gravel, you could even plant some plants coming up through the gravel. If you’ve got heavy soil then roses love clay and are great for cottage gardens. I would try and get some height at the back with delphiniums, Fox gloves etc. A lot of cottage garden plants are perennial, so in a small space it’s worth making sure you’ve got some evergreen shrubs so it’s not bare in winter. In fact I think that is one of the most important things to think about - making sure you plant things so that there is something interesting for every season.

I think you need to be careful. You say you want a cottage-style garden but what you are describing is not cottage-style. Your landscaper may get confused and not fulfil your brief.

Classically, cottage-garden style does not have a lawn (you say you want one). It is a relaxed, informal style (you want raised beds).

A cottage garden should be packed with colour, with flowers, with edible/practical plants. It should have traditional flowers; not fancy hybrid/F1/double-petalled things. It should have a fruit tree. No lawn but narrow paths and seating areas. Hard landscaping, furniture, etc should be of natural materials. It should have the soft lines of curves, not hard angles.
I don't think that you can be both 'neat' and 'unstructured'.

Plastic grass isn’t good not only for environmental reasons but also it can get very hot in summer. If you have little dogs then they will burn their paws on it.
If you want a true cottage garden senua is right. Don’t have a lawn at all but paths winding through tightly packed flowerbeds. Little seating areas, arches and garden whimsys tucked about.

Thanks you so much for all the comments, taking everything on board. I've attached a pic of the garden to give an idea, we're getting rid of the swings & trampoline. Our dogs (2 little bichon friese) love to put stones in their mouth so we're a bit afraid of stones... They do love watching the birds coming to the feeder..
Dhs shed is staying... I like the blue shed, we are painting the fence no idea what colour... But I really want a cottage garden 🙈 is it impossible?

Oh meant to add we're also getting a pergola built over the patio...

I was going to say low box hedging is on the list for a cottage garden, perhaps as a divider between the patio and the rest of the garden.

And senua clearly knows what she's talking about

Also with that kind of budget, make sure you get a proper garden designer not just some bloke who mows lawns on his day off.

In the meantime, treat yourself to a book on the subject. This one (on Amazon) sounds like it could give you some ideas:

www.waterstones.com/book/modern-cottage-garden-a-fresh-approach-to-a-classic-style/greg-loades9781604699081

You can do that for well under £7k.
As it is such a small area I would paint both the fences and the shed something like garden shades willow green to blend in with the planting.
Then just take up all the grass and put in a curved path the the shed and another curve taking it to the back of the garden where I would put something tall to block out the housing behind and a seating area under it. Then everything else could become flower beds with a couple of stepping stones in amongst them to enable weeding.

And now I've just ordered that book myself which certainly wasn't the plan. Damn you OP! Ah well, it is payday.

I think that you could make the shed the focus, the star of the show.
Put on some faux windows and make it look like a cute-sy potting shed (even if it isn't!). Create An Entrance: a step, a mini-patio. Nestle items there: statement pots of plants, gardening implements (eg aluminium watering can), painted stones, etc. Have a climber rambling over the roof (white rose would be lovely). Have a rustic path leading (curving) up to it. Balance it by having a tree approx where the trampoline is - have your bird-feeders hanging off that - and fill behind with a profusion of plants, including the obligatory tall ones at the back. Have a pseudo vegetable garden (of low growing plants so you don't obscure the view too much) in front of the shed.

This is similar shape and size to my garden. We have a listed cottage and have this low maint garden.

I think some paving and lots of plant will give your what you desire.

Cafe mocha, your garden is gorgeous a real little Oasis 😍, love it!
Senua this all sounds great, do you think we could put a cherry blossom where the trampoline or swings are or would we get complaints from the neighbours about blocking light?

Having an early blossom tree would be lovely (very cottage garden). Even better if it was fruiting, too. Just check - before you buy! - the ultimate height of whatever tree you choose.

@StCharlotte now I want that book too!!

We put a cherry tree in our smallish garden. It's about 5m and has stayed that height for yeas now. It flowers quite late compared to others and the blossom is a glorious hot pink. It also has dark red as opposed to green leaves which are almost fluorescent in autumn but I can't remember the name of course. So my point is there are smaller ones out there.

There is an RHS page here on cherry trees for small gardens.

Agree - avoid the plastic grass. If you can, build some height into the garden... can the seating area be put at the end and raised somehow? Depends if it gets evening sun I suppose.
If you are against using stones or pebbles how about bark path segmenting the 'rooms' or beds? Anything to avoid the Astro turf

Plastic grass is horrid and terrible for the environment. I'd go for something like this.

@PrimalLass Awh I love that.

My friend has a long narrow garden, at the rear of her early 19th century cottage.

She's made it seem bigger by cleverly staggering paving so that in some places it's just a path and in some it goes almost right up to the fence, with just a narrow bed on one side. The bigger beds alternate from side to side, so that there's one on the slightly shadey side and the one nearest the house and at the far end are sunny. This makes the "path" wind and the garden seems bigger

She also has a raised bed with an amelanchier tree, which the birds love, and honeysuckle which provides a nice food source for the birds, who use the trellis holding it up to perch on.

She has softened the edges where the plants meet the paving by using lots of ground cover plants (saxifrages, phlox subulatus etc) and letting it spread a bit. She has lots of cottagey plants (cosmos, catananche, nigella) that self seed year after year, some salvias and delphiniums for height, lavender for scent and pollinators, and has managed to grow a lovely climbing rose from a sucker that came through the fence!

I agree with pps that raised beds aren't really "cottagey". Ground cover might stop the dogs finding stones to carry around.

A slight word of caution about cherry trees: their pollen is a common allergen for hay fever sufferers, which is why I haven't got one. The streaming nose I get from NDNs ribes is bad enough!

My crabapple trees attract birds. You have to make sure to select a variety with smaller fruit.

Donald Wyman is magnificent and has been growing quickly. Sugar Time also beloved by birds and is a bit smaller and slower growing.

Put mirrors on the shed to mimic windows and add some depth.

With a small garden you need to aim for year round interest. For structure I would include a few small trees, some evergreen grasses, like pheasant grass and lots of Cornus. My favourite Cornus is midwinter fire. I would aim for a garden that does not need cutting back in autumn but instead one that will produce interesting shapes and large seed heads. Then in spring you can just cut everything back.
Teasels, Eryngiums, poppies, rudbeckia are good examples.

Then plant some perennials like astrantia, yarrow, Angelica, astilbe, Veronica , Achillea, some lavender and rosemary for the bees.

The secret of a good cottage garden is for the plants to support one another. Don’t be tempted to put tall plants at the back, but mix them up to look natural.

I would also leave some gaps for seed planting in the summer and bulb planting in autumn. Calendula,nasturtium, poppies , marigolds helichrysum are all plants that will keep bugs off your plants and attract bees and insects. Followed by miniature daffs and iris.

A cottage garden does not need the soil to too rich. A peat free multipurpose compost to start. Then a weak seaweed feed once a month throughout the summer.

My garden is 21 feet by 15 feet