Cottage Style Garden Ideas

Do you want cottage garden ideas? Cottage gardens were originally created and maintained in order to grow vegetables and herbs.

The garden was located right next to the house for easy and quick access. Flowers were not planted purposely, but rather showed up when flower seeds were blown into the garden area and just happened to flourish.

Today's cottage gardens are filled with many different kinds of flowers and herbs and perhaps some vegetables as well.

Cottage garden decorating has changed somewhat over the years, but it doesn't take much to create a beautiful garden, whether you have a cottage or not.

Maintaining a cottage garden takes very little effort, but you'll enjoy many months of beauty as a result of your efforts.

Cottage garden ideas center around flowers, walkways, unique containers, and other unusual ways of decorating the garden areas.

Sometimes lawn is non-existent unless a bit of it was missed when planting the flowers or creating the walkways through the flower gardens.

A cottage garden is quite perfect for those who enjoy watching a garden or flowers do what they may instead of trying to contain every growing thing within a flowerbed.

There are several flowers associated with a cottage garden. These flowers might include:

• roses, poppies, cornflowers, snapdragons, hollyhocks, hostas, Black-eyed Susans, peonies, Delphiniums, and phlox.
• You're also likely to find several different annuals and perennials in a cottage garden.
• Shrubs, vines, turf grasses, and herbs are also prevalent in a cottage garden.
• Arbors and trellises abound, so that the climbing plants have a place to grow upward, creating a beautiful accent for your garden entrance or patio area.

• White picket fences often surround a cottage garden and provide a place for climbing vines or flowers to attach to and eventually become a natural, flowering fence line.

• Window boxes overflowing with flowers are indicative of a cottage-decorating theme.
• Brick or stone paths wind through the gardens for watering and enjoying.
• Stone wall accents are a wonderful in a cottage garden.
• Birdhouses are a wonderful garden idea for any garden. Your cottage garden ideas should include several styles and sizes of birdhouses so you can enjoy both the flowers and the birds.


Cottage garden decorating also incorporates whimsical or unique ideas using every day items.

• Consider parking an antique bicycle in the middle of your garden and using the basket on the front for flowers.
• Wooden or wrought iron chairs are the perfect setting for a box or container of flowers.
• Remember that wrought iron headboard in the attic? Bring it out to the garden! Place it against the house or barn and allow clematis or roses to climb it.

• Unusual containers for flowers can be anything that may have outlived its usefulness otherwise.
• Consider old hiking boots, mucking boots, teacups, buckets, watering cans, whiskey barrels, pottery, bathing tubs, milk cans, or anything else that would effectively hold dirt and flowers.

Garden Furniture

We would be amiss if we didn't mention adding several seating areas within your cottage garden.

Wooden or wrought iron benches with cushions provide just the right place for you to sit, relax, and enjoy your garden. A few side tables come in handy as well for holding the pitcher of freshly squeezed lemonade and perhaps your binoculars and camera.