Arthur Strachan's painting "Outside the Cottage" is a dream come true! We, too, can surround our homes with an abundant amount of enchanting flowers. What could be more satisfying then creating your own living piece of splendor?

 

Gardens envelope your senses with color, fragrance and natural beauty. It makes you pause from the rush of the day and brings you back to the simple things that truly matter. These truths are rooted in the ever unfolding beauty of the flower bed. We need our gardens more than ever. It is why year after year we come back to plant something new again.

The cottage garden is playful and spontaneous! The plants are not difficult to grow and the beds are jam packed, helping to keep unwanted weeds to a minimum. Perennials come back year after year and the annuals often reseed. Some gardens are grand, some are simple and small but all cottage gardens beckon the visitor to come take a closer look.

Cottage Gardening is a balance between reliability and surprise. In our garden, we take for granted that there will always be the stalwarts: Delphiniums and Foxglove, bellflowers and Lupines, Monarda and Lobelia, Rudbeckia and Shasta Daisies. They anxiously await their moment to shine. Then there are the nuances that we tuck into the border and forget about until one morning we wake up and see the lovely rose cups of Lavetera or the sky blue stalks of the "blue cloud" Salvias pushing through the well established older perennials. Their blooms last the entire season.

In spring and early summer there is burst after burst of colorful blossoms from primroses and violas to the delphiniums and foxglove. Then come the "dog days of summer": high temps and often never enough rain. But in the cottage garden the loyal ones bloom on: helenium, rudbeckia, monarda and echinacea. In our garden, they bloomed for weeks on end. When the nights started getting cool, we found our old friends from spring, violas and pansies, salvias and dianthus, and our favorite the delphiniums, blooming once again.

So go play in your garden and pack it with the plants that do best for you. Try something new or toss in some annuals to fill in the gaps. It's a recipe for beauty and pleasure.

 

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