 I had a fantastic experience installing a DripWorks system in my xeriscape. I had no problems, no dis-appointments, and no missing parts. Everything worked well and it made me feel like an expert the first time. Your catalog is so user-friendly; it's like having an advisor there to hold your hand." 
-- Dan, Albuquerque, New Mexico |
 Top 30 Cottage Garden Perennials
6 Easy Tips for Creating a Cottage Garden
Cottage Design Slideshow
Internet SpecialsEvery week we have new Internet Specials
-- plants, seeds, soil amendments, fertilizers -- just about anything for the garden. Keep checking back to see the latest.
Gardening Tips
For more information about soil, plants, garden history, botanical news, watering and much more, read 100's of gardening articles in our extensive online Library.
David Salman, President/
Chief Horticulturist
Ava Salman, VP / Dir. of Marketing
Kerry Kirkpatrick, Editor
| |
|
The beauty of cottage gardening is that there are no rules to follow or conventions to adhere to. Let the desire for informality and functionality be your creative focus when planning and planting your little piece of paradise. -- David Salman
Create a Waterwise Cottage Garden
-- By David Salman, President, High Country Gardens
 The cottage garden is a distinct style of garden that uses an informal design, traditional materials, dense plantings, and a mixture of ornamental and edible plants. English in origin, the cottage garden depends on grace and charm rather than grandeur and formal structure. The cottage garden is designed to appear artless, rather than contrived or pretentious. Instead of artistic curves, or grand geometry, there is an artfully designed irregularity.
 The earliest cottage gardens were more practical than their modern descendants — with an emphasis on vegetables and herbs, along with some fruit trees, perhaps a beehive, and even livestock. Flowers were used to fill any spaces in between. Over time, flowers became more dominant. Favorite plants included old-fashioned roses that bloomed once a year with rich scents, simple flowers like daisies, and flowering herbs. Leisured creators of "cottage gardens" would add a sun-dial, crazy paving on paths with thyme in the interstices, and a rustic seat, generally missing in the earlier cottage gardens. From Wikipedia, “Cottage Gardens”
 The concept of a cottage garden has taken hold of the modern gardening psyche as gardeners yearn for the simplicity of yesteryear and delight in this style of informal and unscripted horticulture. The cottage garden is more relevant than ever, especially because of the intense interest in home vegetable and herb cultivation, plants that fit well into the concept of the cottage garden. What could be better than stepping out your kitchen or back door into the garden to harvest food and bouquets?
 High Country Gardens, following the lead of such Western garden visionaries as Lauren Springer Ogden, has taken this gardening concept one step further by promoting native and regionally suitable plants for the West to recreate the look of a cottage garden. By using perennials, flowering shrubs and vines selected for growing in the arid, windy, weather challenged parts of the Great Plains, Intermountain West and the eastern side of the Coastal mountain ranges, the Western Cottage Garden was born. This same rugged, colorful, low maintenance plant palette can also be used in the Mid-West and Eastern US as well.
Combine tall growing perennials
in the back of the cottage bed with mid- to small growing plants like along the garden paths. I love to use perennials that re-seed readily like Flax, Viola, Chocolate Flower (Berlandiera) and species Columbine (Aquilegia).
 This adds a wonderful spontaneity to the cottage garden as plants naturalize and find their own place in which to grow.
Fill the corners with fragrant spring blooming shrubs like Western Mock Orange (Philadelphus lewisii ‘Cheyenne’) or Fragrant Sweet Brier Rose
(Rosa eglanteria).
Run a colorful vine like Lonicera ‘Blanche Sandman’
or a ‘John Cabot’ climbing rose us a trellis against the house. Fill in between flagstone stepping stones with Turkish Speedwell (Veronica liwanensis) or Woolly Thyme.
 Work into the beds annual bread-seed poppies like ‘Lauren’s Grape’. Bring fragrance and culinary utility into the beds by planting Lavender ‘Provence’
, Rosemary ‘Irene’ and Little leaf Garden Sage (Salvia officinalis ‘Minimus’). Edible, re-seeding annual flowers like nasturtium and Johnny Jump Ups (Viola sp.) are always a nice touch. Find a place for a semi-dwarf Apple or Pie Cherry; the cottage garden celebrates the fact that you can have both flowers and food.
The beauty of cottage gardening is that there are no rules to follow or conventions to adhere to. Let the desire for informality and functionality be your creative focus when planning and planting your little piece of paradise.
 Make it easy; our pre-planned Waterwise Rose and Perennial Garden is the perfect Cottage garden starter kit!
Top 30 Cottage Garden Perennials
6 Easy Tips for Creating a Cottage Garden
View this Cottage Design Slideshow
Color = Emotion
 Which plant colors will you choose this Spring? Start by using our color guide to choose the plant colors and combinations that speak to your emotions.
Harmonious colors have a soothing effect. Pastels set a peaceful and tranquil mood, and are often used when creating a cottage garden. Softer color combinations include blue, purple, and pink. We particularly like using silvers with blues as can be seen in our Sunset Over Gray and Blue: Xeric Pre-Planned Garden and Cold Hardy Mediterranean Garden.
 Try grouping tones of colors together; for example, orange can always link red and yellow, and red can link successfully to pinks, or try mixing shades of the same color. Lauren Springer's 'Colors and Textures' Garden is a pleasing combination.
Contrasting colors surprise and delight. Color contrast can be created with combinations like yellow and purple, orange and blue, or green and red. Try Lauren Springer's Butterfly Paradise Cottage Garden™ for bold groupings.
View plants by color
|
