Want a Lush, Cottage Garden at Home? Here’s How To Get It!

Learn more about garden styles:
-Cottage Garden Style, A Complete Guide (Article)

Garden Styles: What Type is Right For You? (Article)

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About the Video:
Cottage garden style is the relaxed and sometimes unruly offspring of the formal/traditional garden style. In cottage gardens, there’s much less emphasis placed on the symmetry or positioning of plants. Throughout this video, you’ll learn lots of tips and tricks to get your home gardening feeling cottage-like and cozy.

The cottage garden design style incorporates dense informal masses of edibles, herbs, medicinals and ornamental plantings using traditional-style hardscape materials. The earliest cottage gardens in England were grown for very practical purposes. Over time, a colorful mixture of blooming flowers has become the centerpiece rather than the afterthought of the cottage garden style.

Although the lack of rules and structure can make the country cottage garden style a little tricky to accomplish, the one thing you need to remember is that cottage gardens are gardens “of the heart, of the hearth and of the home.”

Here are my top tips to nailing the cottage garden style at home:
1. Avoid symmetry and straight lines
2. Design informal plantings that appear “randomly placed” with very little open space.
3. Use natural materials like brick, gravel, decomposed stone and mulch used for pathways.
4. Use common plants and incorporate medicinals, edibles and herbs into the planting with your flowers. Try Plants that spill onto paths, over fences and out of window boxes to “soften” the edges. Go vertical by growing climbing plants and vines up walls and fences. A staple to cottage garden style is using ornamental plants mixed together with medicinal and edible plants.
5. You can use lots of color, but be intentional about your color palette.

Items to Incorporate to get the cottage garden style at home:
-Fencing - A white picket fence is the staple of the cottage garden style but you can also look into palisade fencing, post & rail fence, hazel/willow hurdle fences and brushwood fences
-plants like self sowing annuals, medicinals, edibles and herbs
-flea market finds
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[karinascrystalgarden]

I giggled when you said, don't follow the instructions on the planting guide. Loved this video, it's exactly my style a beautiful mess from the heart! Thank you, I really enjoy watching your videos!

[Theinsomniac]

I poured used coffee grounds on my blue spruce tree and it came back to life. It looks very majestic and beautiful.

[melissaoleary]

You had me at "don't follow the instructions". 😂

[lilypad]

This is exactly what I needed! My favorite style and I’m just starting. Lots of trial and error but your advice is very much appreciated!!

[uncodedlife]

Lovely video, one of the best that explains what a cottage garden looks like

[alisontaylor]

Excellent video, love it, I am digging a Cottage Garden to be ready for my retirement golden years. I’m going to sit in it and drink a pot of tea. Best to you Amy, peace and blessings.

[denisecarrick]

I just love your channel. You are so warm and sincere, and very well informed.

[freedomofreligion]

Amy, I LOVE that spinning garden ornament behind you, over by the fence. ❤

[totallydomestic]

Loved this cottage garden video. That’s my style, but not the scraggly overgrown look where you can’t see the house.
I am going to watch every one of your videos!

[gardenfunwithjane]

My style is definitely a cottage garden style. I love planting everything to intermingle. If i don't like how the colors are working i move the plant. But usually I'm very happy with the results. Hi from Utah ❤

[maryannferencak]

Excellent video! I have a traditional front yard and a combination of cottage and traditional backyard. I am creating a semi circular cottage garden off of my patio and it really is not easy! I discovered that I was spacing everything too far apart, just like you said not to do. I added some tidy evergreen shrubs; maybe I shouldn't have, but felt it needed some structure (especially in the winter).

[OTLMAKES]

Loved this. I'm in the process of making a cottage garden.

[fabricdragon]

my front yard is closer to "cottage" than any other style, one thing i found was that by having a unifying color spread throughout (in my case, white/off white) it helped smooth some other issues out. Most of my flowers range form pink to purple, but here and there are odd ball colors, and they would clash i think except that there are off white edging stones, and off white pots, and white flowers, here and there throughout.
also *most* of the time, the use of wood and "re used" items will push the garden toward the informal. we have half whiskey barrels and it definitely adds a touch of the "rustic" but not so much as to make it look completely "natural".

now, to be fair, i am planting a lot of edible stuff in my front yard, and i wanted to be absolutely certain my yard looked "good enough" that my neighbors liked it. (note: i avoided an HOA at all costs so technically i can grow whatever, but i want to *encourage* others, not discourage them!) so a lot of my pollination plants are familiar things like coneflowers, and bee balm, and garden phlox... daylilies are both edible and look familiar...

lavender is always a good choice, in my opinion, as it is edible in some varieties, medicinal, beautiful, pollinator friendly, *familiar* to the neighbors, and low water need! and can fit in from formal to completely wild depending on placement and pruning!

[Blake.Cooper]

Just subscribed! You had me at the very beginning. You are very well spoken.

[jessicapinto]

Brilliant video, new subscriber here!

[mickeypantaleo]

Love love love your garden. Absolutely beautiful. One can dream lol! ❤

[raymondepare]

... From Québec, thank you so much for this video ...

[sprig.sprout]

I’m so glad I found this! I have a ridiculous amount of seedlings inside and a ridiculous amount of space outside and I’m totally struggling to plan what to put where 😂

[smeyers]

Thank you very much. I love this video. It’s really helpful.

[SunandSnowGardening]

Great video! I'll use this info. Love the cottage look.