This Dartmouth cottage-style garden includes pink echinacea, purple Russian sage, white rugosa rose, purple creeping thyme and colorful rhododendrons. Most of the maintenance comes from large mature deciduous trees dropping leaves in fall.

Cottage gardens are having a revival…and for good reason. Now more than ever, our brains want the feel-happy hit of dopamine that comes from looking at beauty.

Looking at beauty activates the pleasure center in our brain. Warm, bright colors such as red or pink can positively change the wiring of your brain. Really!

But there’s something different about this new wave of interest in cottage gardens. If you’ve ever had an invasive plant that was a maintenance nightmare, you might know why. Lack of knowledge sometimes results in plants with unintended consequences.

But, it is absolutely possible to have a stunning modern cottage garden that keeps you love to look at and care for.

Cottage gardens are intentionally casual. Unlike formal gardens that are orderly and well-defined, cottage gardens allow nature to take its course more. There are fewer rules. It’s more relaxed, fun and often more colorful.

The modern cottage garden requires picking the right plants and using design principles to ensure your cottage-style garden is beautiful and easy to care for.

Here’s how.

A simple garden design that packs a punch using just three colors and bloom shapes. Add year-round structure with evergreens like boxwood, rhododendron or evergreen azalea.

Dream a Little

What’s your vision? Is it tumbling climbers creeping on walls, romantic drifts of softly colored perennials, an intimate courtyard surrounded by lavender and roses or vintage containers with vibrant flowers and home-grown food?

You know it when you see it so do look around and define your vision. Cottage gardens are a personal self-expression. Beyond “right plant, right place”, there’s not a lot of rules other than a profusion of plants, a love of flowers and a lack of grandiosity.

Keep it Simple

Keeping a cottage garden simple will make it easier to design, plant and maintain. Start with a single bed, use good rich, organic soil and plan your design before heading to the nursery. Never place new plants in a weed invaded garden.

Plant Selection

Cottage gardens earn their place by being pretty to look at - and easy to grow, useful, and/or edible. Pick plants with different shapes, textures, colors and scents for a charming garden.

Here’s some ideas on picking the right plants for your garden.

In this coastal retreat garden we extend the naturalized area along the waterfront using foxglove and native plants. Like the existing lupine, the foxglove can self-seed freely making this garden blend seamlessly and beautifully in this natural setting.

Large blooms on a few stems: delphinium, peony, coneflower, rudbeckia, helenium and hollyhock are examples of low maintenance plants with high impact. I include foxglove on this list; while it self-seeds it is a biennial bloomer and does so with restraint and exceptional beauty in the right garden location. These plants have stems that take seconds to cut back in fall.
Add height with hollyhocks, delphiniums, crocosmia and foxglove; round shapes from globe thistle or allium; pick cheerful plants like shasta daisies or rudbeckia or ladies mantle or Siberian iris for their interesting leaf textures.
Not self-seeding or invasive: Take heed and research every plant you select for your garden! Avoid coreopsis (tickseed), bugleweed, lupin, loosestrife, ribbon grass, Rosa multiflora, Snow on the Mountain/Bishop’s Weed/goutweed, orange “ditch lily”.

Tough plants: pick tough, disease-resistant varieties of plants. Spring flowering bulbs, native plants, wild indigo, purple coneflower, knock-out roses, zebra and miscanthus grasses are high-performance plants that are easy to grow.

Repetition is Key

Pick them…and then repeat them. Planting swathes of three, five or seven of the same plant is a signature look for cottage gardens. Foxglove are perfect for this. Planning is key and repetition ensures you don’t end up with a busy, unfocused garden.

When designing Maggie’s Garden, Amy planted 114 perennials using 14 varieties. She picked plants with larger blooms that flower at different times to repeat, including delphiniums (21), coneflower (13), foxglove (14) and peony (8). She selected heath (9) for early spring blooms and eight varieties of shrubs (30 in total).

Repetition helps the eye rest on focal points and enjoy the garden.

This Tantallon cottage garden includes crushed granite paths to connect the back patio door with the waterfront and both sides of the house. The granite is repeated in boulders placed in the garden and naturally occuring along the water for a cohesive, natural appearance. Under the mulch, 14 soaker hoses were installed. The homeowner can attach the garden hose to the end and hand water as needed for larger elements.

Automatic Watering

New gardens need regular, deep watering. Dragging a hose around is…well, a drag. We recommend installing soaker hoses under the mulch to put water where you need it. Place the drip line around the base of plants and secure them with steel landscape staples to keep them intact.

Hardscapes and Features

Paths, courtyards, obelisks and rock features are excellent elements in the cottage-style garden.

Crocus meadow was completed in fall of 2020. After the blooms die back, the lawn simply gets mowed and the foliage becomes mulch. Some 3600 crocus bulbs were planted. It was dark when we finished up for the day…our client says it was well worth the effort.

Use paths and steps to direct foot traffic and bring structure and definition to garden beds. A meandering path is better than a straight one. Our guide to using gravel in hardscaping can help you pick the right material.
We love courtyard gardens for their flexibility. Courtyards can be secluded spots to place a bench to appreciate your hard work. We have used them for less romantic purposes too such as covering septic fields and goutweed invaded properties that were beyond repair. They work with a range of garden styles from modern to cottage and are virtually maintenance-free.
Obelisks, arbors and trellises are quintessential English garden element. Beautiful on their own, they create vertical interest and are useful for climbing plants ranging from runner beans to clematis or roses. You can also use hanging baskets, window boxes or containers to create vertical interest.
Stone is lovely in the cottage garden. Nova Scotia is home to some of the most stunning granite in the world. Black, gray, white and flecks of silver allow granite stone to jump out of the landscape. Rough texture or ocean smooth, they can be used in lieu of an evergreen shrub or in an area that cannot be planted due to underground barriers like stumps.
Reclaim nature and turn your lawn into a meadow. A joyful crocus meadow makes passers-by smile…or consider a romantic wildflower meadow.

The cottage garden is an informal style that feels “undesigned”…and its appeal lies in getting the right mix of plants and balance of elements. The romance of the cottage garden makes it a much-loved style that will always be fashionable. Creating a modern cottage garden will allow you the freedom to create and embrace your unique garden without reservation.