Five ways to make your new build garden feel like a cottage garden!
Pssst. You don’t have to own a cottage to have a cottage garden.
Over the last 3 years Ben and I have been transforming our new build garden into our cottage garden of dreams. So here are five things you can do to give your garden some character!
1. Zone your garden.
Zoning your garden is a simple trick to give it character and make it feel more interesting. When I say ‘zoning’ it’s basically just thinking of your garden like you do your house - with different rooms for different activities.
For example: Different seating areas, a kitchen garden, a pond/wildlife area, a greenhouse/shed for storing everything, a children’s play area, a cut flower garden, a bbq area, etc.
Zoning your garden can help make it feel bigger and give you different areas of interest, revealing themselves as you walk through it. And you’ll be surprised how many ‘zones’ you can fit in! Our garden is only 12x7 metres and we’ve managed to create a number of different spaces:
1. Seating area with chiminea (furthest from the house)
2. Wildlife pond & rockery
3. Kitchen garden & greenhouse
4. Lawn & cottage borders
5. Patio & bbq area (nearest the house)
6. Shed & potting area
2. Cottage planting
Cottage gardens are notorious for their romantic planting style. Plants like: foxgloves, roses, lupins, alliums, cosmos, phlox, lavender, delphiniums, campanula! (+ many more).
And the cottage vibe is much more informal than most, opting for a more ‘crammed’ look when it comes to planting. So if in doubt, more is more!
*Bonus tip* - let your plants self seed and grow in random places. We’ve got verbena growing between the patio, snapdragons self seeded along the path and alliums spreading everywhere - the more you let the plants do their thing, the more cottage-like it’ll feel.
3. Containers!
Having a mix of types of containers helps add character to any garden - when everything is uniform it looks a little too structured and modern. But having a selection of different pots, in different sizes and material will help. I love a mix of terracotta and zinc planters in my garden.
4. Talking of containers, opt for second hand!
This is my biggest tip to give your garden character, try to avoid buying new and especially buying plastic. Grow things in old tin baths, old butler sinks, buckets, baskets, old water tanks and even old galvanised bins!
Check out some of my faves below.
5. The garden path!
Garden paths are a very popular feature in the cottage garden, so adding a path to your new build garden will help give it some character and bring all of your zones together. We opted for a traditional hoggin self-binding gravel path, lined with grasses and alliums.
And I’ve got even more tips and info on my instagram page below :)