Cottage gardens are incredibly popular design choices for many people. To get the right look you’ve got to have the right plants! First thing to think about are self-seeding plants! You want the old fashioned favourites and here are some charming choices to start you off.
Hollyhocks are biennial or perennial with petals that are notched and pink, purple, white or yellow and usually quite tall, as in about six feet!
Foxgloves are spiked with tubular flowers that come in white, yellow, pink, spotted and a beautiful corral pink. These are quite tall though not as tall as Hollyhocks. This is a biennial plants and the colours and shape are necessary for a cottage garden.
Wisteria is the most beautiful climber I think. This is almost essential for a wall in a traditional cottage garden. My favourite is the lavender blue colour but these also come in white and pink. The buds are so interesting and the bright green of the leaves are enough even without the amazing flowers that come in May and June.
Nepeta is Catmint! This plant is a real giver with the long lasting lavender spikes and grey-green foliage. I think you need to have a few of these dotted through the garden.
Rambling roses give explosions of colour for your walls, pergolas, arches, trees, bushes or even to disguise ugly objects in your garden! These have bunches of small flowers which flower in early summer
Delphinums bloom mid-summer and have very impressive intensely coloured flower spikes, can be up to six feet depending on type.
Phlox is amazing for attracting butterflies and giving off a wonderful scent on warm summer days. Coming in blue, white and pink, the flowers have domed heads and can last up to five weeks!
It just is not a cottage garden without those tough and hardy but beautiful geraniums. The cranesbill geranium sanguineum ‘Max Frei’ adds a burst of magenta pink colour for the edges and front of beds as it is less than a foot high and nothing beats the blue of the Johnson’s Blue.
Peonies are not only great for adding interest and colour to your borders but are useful for cut flowers in spring and early summer. These are the great romantic flower of the cottage garden.
Like Nepeta, cosmos are so easy to grow and if you dead head them are the great givers of the garden. Their tallness adds an airy feel and keeps movement even on the lightest of breezy days. This plant is also beneficial to pollinators.
Though there are many many more, these ten plants are a really good backbone recipe to start any cottage garden. How easy is that! Enjoy.
Powerscourt Garden Pavilion team
Hollyhocks are biennial or perennial with petals that are notched and pink, purple, white or yellow and usually quite tall, as in about six feet!
Foxgloves are spiked with tubular flowers that come in white, yellow, pink, spotted and a beautiful corral pink. These are quite tall though not as tall as Hollyhocks. This is a biennial plants and the colours and shape are necessary for a cottage garden.
Rambling roses give explosions of colour for your walls, pergolas, arches, trees, bushes or even to disguise ugly objects in your garden! These have bunches of small flowers which flower in early summer
Delphinums bloom mid-summer and have very impressive intensely coloured flower spikes, can be up to six feet depending on type.
Phlox is amazing for attracting butterflies and giving off a wonderful scent on warm summer days. Coming in blue, white and pink, the flowers have domed heads and can last up to five weeks!
It just is not a cottage garden without those tough and hardy but beautiful geraniums. The cranesbill geranium sanguineum ‘Max Frei’ adds a burst of magenta pink colour for the edges and front of beds as it is less than a foot high and nothing beats the blue of the Johnson’s Blue.
Peonies are not only great for adding interest and colour to your borders but are useful for cut flowers in spring and early summer. These are the great romantic flower of the cottage garden.
Like Nepeta, cosmos are so easy to grow and if you dead head them are the great givers of the garden. Their tallness adds an airy feel and keeps movement even on the lightest of breezy days. This plant is also beneficial to pollinators.
Though there are many many more, these ten plants are a really good backbone recipe to start any cottage garden. How easy is that! Enjoy.
Powerscourt Garden Pavilion team 
