Cottage GARDEN IDEAS

Charming ways to create a character-filled outdoor space you'll instantly fall in love with

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Cottage gardens are all about creating a beautiful space that's packed with soft flowers and scent. From overflowing borders filled with cottage garden plants to pretty accessories and seating that adds instant charm, there are plenty of ways to create a cottage-style vibe in your own garden.

And, if you’re the owner of an urban garden, don’t be discouraged. You don’t have to live in a picture-postcard thatched cottage in the English countryside to create a cottage garden scheme! All of these ideas will work just as well on a smaller scale for a romantic, flower-filled city garden as they would in a larger rural space.

Cottage gardens typically have an informal planting scheme featuring lots of different colours for a space that’s packed with interest. Flowerbeds are bigger than you might find in a more contemporary style garden, so keep in mind that you might need to sacrifice some of your lawn to create the most successful cottage garden planting scheme.

Create a meadow-like feel by layering your plants

If there's one thing that's essential for a country garden, it's flowers, and lots of them. Historically the quintessential cottage garden would have evolved slowly and planting would have had no strict plan.

Self seeders were welcomed, plants were propagated from cuttings, gifted by neighbours and perhaps collected from the native countryside. All would have been planted in whatever space was available with little thought to hierarchy or height, which resulted in a magical jumble of shape and colour.