English Cottage Gardening California Style
by Pam Wallace, Master Gardener

Do you love the lush look of an English cottage garden, but are tired of the time and expense involved in planting annuals each season? Then this spring try using perennial plants for that cottage garden look. Perennials live and bloom for many growing seasons and with their longer life span, you save time and money! An added bonus is that after a few seasons, most perennials can be divided, resulting in two or three plants for the price of one!

A cottage garden is an eclectic collection of plants that are allowed to ramble and intertwine with each other. It's an informal space consisting of gentle curved lines, no straight edges, and is typically enclosed by retaining walls, hedges, or picket fences. Cottage garden plants are usually crowded together, showing very little soil in between. This is a big help in weed management!

Before you plant take time to examine your yard. You can widen and curve some of your flowerbeds just by taking the square edges off the lawn. Determine the amount of sun your beds receive daily, before and after any trees leaf out. Also note whether this is the cooler morning sun, or the hotter afternoon exposure.

Planning and careful plant selection makes a big difference on your cottage garden's success. Remember that a garden is seen from the inside as well as the outside of a house. So don't forget to focus on areas seen from key windows. Make a list of plants you like from catalogs, books, nurseries, and neighbors' yards. Some of the qualities to look for are: flower color, height, blooming season, and light and water requirements. This will help you match plants with similar needs in the same bed.

For showy displays of color, pick plants that bloom about the same time. For continuous color choose plants that slightly overlap each other in their blooming. I focus on a few colors and plant masses of relatively few kinds of plants for a bigger visual impact in my large beds. My smaller beds are more hodge-podge.

Plan to amend your soil before planting. This is key to a long lasting flowerbed. Amendments increase water retention, improve drainage, and increase fertility.

After you prepare the soil, set the plants out in their pots to get an idea of the grouping you want to use. Taller plants should be towards the back of the bed, so as not to hide the shorter ones. For a bed that can be seen from all sides, arrange the tallest plants in the center, letting the lower plants taper down towards the edges. Strive for an informal look. If you "stair-step" your plants too carefully, your beds look too formal. Inter-mingle plants of different sizes, shapes, and foliage color for a striking arrangement.

Avoid the urge to overcrowd your plants. Instead take into account each plant's eventual size. You may use tighter spacing for smaller slow-spreading plants, and separate them later. When you are pleased with your arrangement, go ahead and plant. The perfect perennial planting time in our area is fall. This gives them the winter to establish their roots before the summer heat comes along. Spring planting will also work, but be prepared to give your plants a little extra water and care during that first hot summer. A topping of mulch when you are done will also improve your beds by reducing evaporation, adding nutrients, and slowing weed growth.

Here are some flowering perennials that will grow in our area. Be sure to check the height at maturity, water, and light conditions needed for each plant.

Spring & Fall flowering (most perennials that bloom in the spring will re-bloom in the fall if they are dead-headed): bleeding hearts, bluebeard, bluebells, candytuft, columbine, coral bells, dianthus, English prunella, foxglove, hellebore, hosta, Jacob's ladder, nemesia, penstemon, razzleberri, sages, Santa Barbara daisy, scented geraniums, Spanish heather, and veronicas.

Summer flowering: butterfly bush, catmint, coneflower, coreopsis, daisy (Marguerite & Shasta), daylilies, bronze fennel, gaura, geraniums (common & scented), hibiscus, lamb's ears, lavenders, monarda, pincushion flower, plumbago, rockrose, rose campion, salvias, thymes, wallflower, and yarrow.

Winter foliage color: barberry, cotoneaster, euonymus, euryops, hellebore, nandina, pyracantha, razzleberri, and sumac.

Finally, there's no such thing as an irreversible mistake in a perennial garden. Gardeners often rearrange their plants to suit their tastes. So don't be afraid to try your own ideas when creating your California cottage garden.

February 20, 2003