Few gardens are as charming and beckoning as a colorful, cozy cottage garden – especially one near a beautiful blooming meadow. These natural-style gardens are simply alive with color and texture and welcome you to enjoy their simple beauty.
A colorful variety of cheerful flowers creates an exuberant display. The blurred lines between plants is a key feature in natural cottage gardens.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/Charles Slay
Natural materials, like a stone path, are important elements in cottage gardens.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/Doug Dealey
Instead of a typical turfgrass lawn, create a frontyard meadow garden with a lively mix of wildflowers, annuals and perennials.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
Butterflies find colorful
coneflowers an enticing garden addition to any meadow or prairie planting.
Photo Credit: ©2001 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard
If you adore the idea of that picturesque thatched-roof, English-countryside cottage garden, hold onto your trowel, because that’s only one type of cottage garden – there’s so much more beyond it. Cottage gardens aren’t limited to just one style – or even one place. Believe it or not, a cottage garden can work as well in the city as in the country. Heck, this natural-garden theme can even work in the desert!
The trick to creating a successful cottage garden is to use plants that thrive under your region’s conditions – a key tenet of the natural garden. Native plants echo the original, uncultivated landscape they’re from and visually link the garden to its surrounding environmental region.
When it comes to planning your own cottage garden, any modest-sized dwelling is a basis of a good design. Add the right approach, and voilà – your cottage theme. Just remember, most cottage gardens are in enclosed front areas, often with a gate and a natural-style walkway leading to the front door of the home. Flowering plants abound inside this enclosed area – native plants, local building materials and whimsical decorations tie the garden to its location.
Now, maybe you’re still stuck back at the idea of creating a cottage garden in the desert. But stick with me here, and I’ll explain how the idea is as amenable to homes in the Southwest as it is to homes in the East. Sure these gardens will look vastly different, but the structure is the same. Imagine the modest dwelling, enclosed area, lovely pathway and tons of blooming prickly pear, Adam’s-needle, aloe and drifts of drought-tolerant flowers against those Southwestern adobe walls. It sure won’t look like that Cape Cod cottage image in your mind, but a cottage garden it’ll be nonetheless – and a beautiful one at that.
And you can take this concept anywhere. A cottage garden in the Mid-Atlantic might feature native dogwood and false indigo mixed with well-adapted non-natives, including Siberian iris and ornamental onions. Wherever you live, a cottage garden offers unlimited opportunity for experimentation and enjoyment.
Now about that adjacent meadow... Admittedly, not everyone has the space for a large, sunny, open area next to a cozy cottage garden. But meadow-inspired wildflower gardens and perennial beds can replicate the carefree beauty of these gorgeous natural spaces, and they can be any size (but preferably large enough to enjoy a good massing of them waving in a stiff breeze).
What’s more, these natural spaces are important to the balance of the land in some parts of the country. The grasses’ and wildflowers’ deep roots help the plants survive cold winters and dry summers, as well as help prevent soil erosion. The Midwest was once home to a massive ocean of grassland – the prairie. This undulating sea contained a rich mixture of grasses and wildflowers. The stirring beauty of this unique North American habitat can be restored in modern prairie gardens, as well as in an innovative theme called the New American Garden, where free-spirited ornamental grasses are artfully arranged with drifts of perennials and bulbs. Suggestive of the prairie, these gardens may contain native prairie plants, as well as others matched to local growing conditions.
These naturalistic prairie and meadow gardens can fit in just about sunny garden space. You may choose to plant that meadow in your side yard to accompany that frontyard cottage garden. Or perhaps you’ll turn your entire back yard into an artful prairie meadow. You just need the right wildflowers and grasses for your area and your soil. Then plant those that complement each other together. If you’re planting a large area, be prepared to give that prairie garden a little special care, including an annual mowing and some weed control. Chances are, the larger the space you’re able to plant, the more breathtaking you’ll find your results.
The best part of these garden styles is that you’re not limited by where you live. You can grow a beautiful cottage garden or a lovely meadow or prairie garden just about anywhere – even in the desert! Just adjust your plantings and your plans for a lovely, welcoming space.
