Garden Design Dreaming on Cold Winter Days
Every year, right around February, when the holidays are over and spring is still weeks away, I find myself dreaming about planting and garden design. I start streaming all of my favorite garden makeover shows. And, much to my husband’s dismay, come up with grand plans and designs for our outdoor spaces. We usually get 1 or 2 projects completed each season, but it takes a lot of much debate and some scaling back on my part. None of this stops me from shooting for the stars though! (lol)
My favorite gardening shows are the British ones. They create such beautiful and inspirational gardens! I love Monty Don’s “Big Dreams, Small Spaces”, “Love Your Garden” with Alan Titchmarsh and especially “The Autistic Gardener” by Alan Gardener.
I can’t be the only one who is dreaming of their garden this time of year, so I thought it might be interesting to share some of my ideas and plans. We are very fortunate to have very large front and back yards. However, I find designing large spaces (both when designing interiors and gardens) to be much more challenging than designing small spaces. Large space design can feel very overwhelming. I think my own designs always turn out better when I have limitations that I need to work within and really be creative. Since our spaces are large, I have divided them into smaller chunks and projects that we take on one at a time. I will do separate posts of these areas and projects as we complete them.
The project we are going to take on this spring is for a cutting garden that will be on one side of our house. This post will go over plans I have been working on for this new garden. It is technically part of the front yard, but feels sort of separate.
I am a big proponent of edible landscaping, and that is the direction that I ultimately plan to go with our spaces. But, I also like to mix flowers in with the edible plants for interest and to attract more pollinators. For years I have wanted a cutting garden to have fresh bouquets all spring and summer. Currently in this side yard, there is a bush that we always planned to remove. It takes up a lot of space and makes getting to the gate difficult. It is also not a great use of the space. We are now ready to remove it, and I think a cutting garden will be a perfect, new use of the space.
This is how the area looks now. The cutting garden will go under the window.
I thought this would be an easy, small project but it is turning out to be much larger than I expected. The space for this garden is more than double what I thought it was before measuring. This means more planning, more materials, more work and more money. The “little” area for this project is surrounded by our house on one side, a fence on two sides and open to the rest of the front yard on the final side. I was originally planning to create two cutting gardens in this space. One along the house side (under the window) and another along one of the fence sides. I was also planning to create a walk way of paving stones leading to the gate (that the bush is currently blocking). I have decided to scale back my design.
Here is the scaled drawing I made of the garden area.
After I measured the space and drew it out to scale, I realized that the planting area is almost double the size I thought it was. This is a good problem in that I can plant more flowers, but also threw me a little and made me realize that it is a bigger than expected project. Because the space is larger than I thought from eyeballing it, I have scaled back to only create one cutting garden this year that will be along the house side. This area also butts up to another area of the front yard where we have very established, large bushes with rock under them. The new cutting garden creates an odd cut-out in the yard, so we are planning to create a curve with edging and fill that space with the same kind of river rock. This should make it flow better and blend.
This is the corner I was describing where the two gardens meet where we will create a curve and fill with rock.
I was planning to purchase some pre-made, raised garden beds for this space. Our soil is not the best and most of the plants I am considering need well-draining soil. To have the most success, starting out with the best soil for the project is important. I thought I would need one, maybe two raised boxes at approx. 4 feet x 4 feet. You can purchase them for around $60 each and they come in multiple finishes. I was planning for a garden around 8 ft x 4 ft. Turns out that my space is 13 feet, 6 inches x 4 feet, 2 inches. Since it is an odd size, we decided to build the raised bed instead of purchasing pre-made options. We are also planning to move the gutter drain so that it faces toward the front of our house and interferes less with the plants. More time and possibly more money, but thankfully my husband is very handy!
When selecting plants for this cutting garden, some things I need to keep in mind are:
The overall plan for the front yard, making sure that it flows and makes sense long term.
I want this garden to be low maintenance, so I plan to use mostly perennial plants and hardy bulbs.
We live in growing zone 5 and this garden area faces northwest. It gets partial shade through the first part of the day, and full sun in the afternoon. These features limit the kind of flowering plants I can successfully grow, but I am going to also experiment a bit.
Plant placement for an interesting visual appearance and so that all plants can be seen. I would also like the taller plants to provide some light privacy in front of the windows.
Choosing plants that bloom at different times of the year so that I get a great look throughout the growing season. I plan to do some succession planting around the bulbs with other flowers that bloom in the summer months.
Because there is more space to fill, I decided to change my original planting ideas a little to add in some flowering bushes and climbing plants. I am hoping this will add more visual interest and fill in the space nicely. The plan is to make the most use of the space available so that I get as many flowers as possible. A climbing plant around the windows will give some additional vertical appeal and give me another space for flowers. Also, some climbing flowers on the fence help to hide the chain link that I don’t love.
Here is the detailed plan of where plants will go. I drew this to scale to hopefully help me determine the amount of plants to buy.
I researched a lot of different plant options before making some final selections. I will wait to see what can be sourced locally before ordering. Also, I have a list of back up options incase I am not able to get everything on my list.
I am visualizing mostly straight rows of plants, organized in a way that highlights the size of each. The tallest plants will be in the center, surrounded by bushes in the middle and shorter flowers around the outside boarder. Alternating Peony and Rose bushes will be in the back, along the house. Foxgloves and possibly dahlias in front of the roses and peonies, with Baby’s Breath (or an alternative) at each end. This will be followed by Poppies and Alliums in front of the Foxgloves. Shasta Daisies in front of Alliums, and Tulips in front of the daisies. The boarder will have Daffodils on three sides and Bluebells at each end, behind the Daffodils. I am planning to also interplant some succession perennials with the bulbs so that I will get blooms all season. I am thinking of Columbine and maybe one or two others.
I am so excited for all this color!
Above is the colored rendering I made showing the plants I plan on using. This will be a very colorful garden including all colors of the rainbow! I love color and think that more colors may give me lots of options and make for more beautiful bouquets.
My plant list includes:
Rose Bushes (bloom May to September) - I am not a huge lover of roses, but I like the idea of them being a bush that offers a beautiful cut flower. I do like some of the more rare color varieties like copper, peach and orange. I have my eye on the ‘Garden Unicorn’ rose variety because it is one will tolerate partial shade, however, it seems to already be out of stock everywhere. I will look probably look for an alternative.
Shasta Daisies (bloom July - October) - For a white pop. Plus, I love the simplicity of this flower and its foliage. These grow more like a bush. I am a little worried about growing them in partial shade, but I keep finding conflicting information about how much sun they need and I really want to try!
Long Fellow Peony Bushes (bloom May - June) - Peonies are my very favorite flower and when I read that some varieties can handle partial shade, I was thrilled!
Allium (bloom May - June) - For height and interest. I have always loved the look of alliums and have grown them before. They work really well as cut flowers and last a long time in a vase. They also dry beautifully.
Baby’s Breath, or something like it (bloom June - July) - I want a variety that is more upright than a bush and that does not spread. I am not locked in on this plant, but the idea of it is what I want.
Poppies (bloom April - June) - Some varieties can handle partial shade, but I am not sure what color I will choose yet.
Foxglove (bloom June - September) - I love these for their height, shape and variety of color.
Bluebells (bloom April - May) - I chose this plant for the flower color and interesting petal shape. This plant can be invasive, but it has such a short bloom time that I am not worried too much about it spreading.
Daffodils (bloom March - April) - Another favorite of mine and always a cheerful sign that spring is coming!
Tulips (bloom March - April) - I am not sure what colors I will choose yet, but I know that I do not want yellow or red for this flower.
I also might play around with some dahlias. They are easy to grow, but not hardy so I would need to plant them each year. I am trying to stick to perennials, I’m not sure if I can resist them! This would also give me some flexibility to add something different in one small area each year.
Groundcover Dogwood (bloom May - June) - Using this as a ground cover under and around all of the plants. I picked it for the beautiful foliage, but the tiny flowers are a bonus! I always love seeing the flowering dogwood trees in the spring, so this should be an interesting application of that. I will not cut this plant, so the flowers will be there after I cut other flowers for bouquets (another bonus).
Purple Passion Flower (bloom June - September) - I plan to use this climber on the fence. It is a fast growing perennial vine with really interesting looking purple flowers. I will also not cut the flowers on this plant and its fast growing nature should help cover the fence quickly.
Climbing Hydrangeas (bloom May - August) - I am planning to use these around the window on a trellis that will give it shape and support. I am envisioning a simple trellis that will be asymmetrical. Climbing Hydrangea take a few years to form blooms, so I will have to be patient. But, foliage is also beautiful, and I think it will be a nice accent against our white and black house.
This is a quick sketch of the trellis I would like to create for the climbing hydrangea. It will be on one side and over the top of the window.
We will start tackling this garden in late March with plans to have it fully planted in May. I will add an update with some pictures after the planting is completed, and as it grows. Do you like the idea of a cutting garden? Let me know what you think about this project and if you have or have had a cutting garden.
Thank you for following along!
