Get This Look: Garden Design With Figment Cottage Garden

Looking for ideas for your perennial garden? Cottage gardens are a curated and whimsical take on meadowscaping. Get ideas for your next garden project from the spectacular landscape designs of Caroline Maurer at Figment Cottage Gardens - plus, see a cottage garden layout map designed for American Meadows!

What could be more welcoming than a colorful cottage to brighten your front yard? Cottage gardens feature abundant plants, especially naturalizing plants that will multiply and spread. Fill your yard with beautiful blooms for an outdoor space you'll love. 

Caroline's Tip: "Cottage gardens are all about controlled chaos. By planting in a matrix, grouping plants in odd numbers, and repeating varieties, you create a visual patchwork that’s pleasing to the eye instead of overwhelming."

• Daisies are an effortlessly cheerful cottage garden staple
• Coreopsis is a long-blooming, low-maintenance perennial that's always blanketed in blooms
• Veronica adds a vertical element with delightful upright flower spikes
• Fragrant Bee Balm will naturalize and spread, even in tough soil

In this large garden, there is a beautiful variety of plant textures and flower forms. How does it look so cohesive? Caroline skillfully used color theory to bring together her design, selecting the majority of her flowers with a harmonious color palette. Pink flowers and purple flowers coordinate for a lovely composition, with pops of yellow blooms.

Caroline's Tip: “I always add a pop of red, orange, or yellow to make cooler tone flowers come alive. Trust me. It takes your garden to the next level.”

• Fragrant Lavender is the center of the show, adding an air of elegance and aroma to the garden
• With bold pink blooms and easy-to-grow nature Coneflowers, are a must for meadowscaping
• Daylilies are like eye candy, adding a burst of color to a garden

Delight your senses! In addition to looking beautiful, fragrant flowers add an extra layer of enjoyment to your garden to create a relaxing, soothing outdoor space. When you're cutting flowers for a bouquet or tending to your garden chores, enjoy some aromatherapy to lift your mood!

Caroline's Tip: "Plot out your plant list by bloom time to plan for year-round flowers and fragrance. That way, you’ll know if you need more spring, summer, or fall flowers. Always start your design with foundational shrubs and trees for winter structure." 

• Hyssop, or Agastache, is a native wildflower with minty foliage. This plant is a magnet for pollinators!
• Lavender is the most famous fragrant flower and a favorite of any perennial gardener
• Dianthus are a long-time perennial garden classic with vivid flowers
• Though not as fragrant, bold Coneflowers are a must for any low-maintenance perennial garden

The key to great naturalistic garden design is to repeat your favorite plants. Planting large drifts of dense blooms creates the look of a natural meadow, and research shows that mass planting also makes your garden much more attractive to pollinators. Plus, it makes garden maintenance simpler, too.

Caroline's Tip: "Opposites always attract! Go super tall in the middle of the garden and back of borders, and short toward the front, pathways, and edges. You need the height differentials to achieve a dynamic space.”

• Pink flowering Yarrow with attractice fern-like foliage is a low-maintenance perennial that pollinators love
• Hardy Geraniums are a lower-growing, long-blooming perennial ideal for layering below taller plants 
• Daisies are an easy-to-grow cottage garden staple

When designing your cottage garden, consider what will be in bloom in the early season. Favorite spring blooming perennials, including Peonies, Lupines, and Bearded Irises will be some of the first flowers to welcome the gardening season. 

Soft pinks, purples, and white flowers give a classic pastel palette for spring, complementing the abundant green foliage of the awakening perennial garden.  

Caroline's Tip: “Use the trifecta planting method. That’s a planting ratio of 40% mound-, 40% fan-, and 20% spike-shaped plants to achieve balanced textures and visual interest in the garden."

• Bearded Irises will naturalize and spread. Fans of foliage add interest after the flowers have passed
• Lupines are a beloved native wildflower that bloom in spring with tall, upright flower spikes
• Foxgloves are a mainstay of classic cottage garden design with whimsically tall flower spikes that attract bumblebees
• Peonies are a long-lived treasure for perennial gardeners with fragrant flowers - the true signal of spring!

The American Meadows Garden Plan is a full sun cottage garden plan for 150 square feet, featuring a wide variety of American Meadows perennials. The bloom time has a waterfall effect; cascading into each season and taking over where one flower left off or adding to the ongoing show of multi-season bloomers. I hope you’ll enjoy this garden for years to come! 
- Caroline

• The design features a long blooming garden centered around a 'Limelight' Hydrangea, which anchors the space. 
• In spring, you’ll enjoy Peony, Foxglove, Salvia, Catmint, Lady’s Mantle, Hardy Geranium, Bearded Iris, Baptisia, and Yarrow in bloom. 
• In summer, the Hollyhocks, Coneflower, Echinops, Phlox, and Lobelia will bloom.
• In fall, you’ll enjoy colorful Aster, Sedum, and Russian Sage.
• In winter, if you leave your seed heads, you’ll have lots of winter interest along with the structure of the hydrangea as well as visits from birds who rely on the seeds for forage. 
• This plant list is fully compatible in zones 4-8, and will be suitable for zones 3-9 with a few substitutions. 

You can purchase the American Meadows Garden Plan and others at Figment Cottage Gardens