I am very new to gardening and so far everthing I did last fall is a sucess. I put a lot of bulbs in the front of my house and it seems everything is coming up. The only proplem with this is I want a cottage garden look now and I have a lot of bulbs to deal with. What would be the best way to plant this spring?
I want foxglove and columbine etc. Do I have to wait until the bulbs fully die back and then remove them?
newbie is trying to grow a cottage garden
Hello Bookreader...
Come look at this thread. It's been going for awhile about "Cottage Gardening"
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/839692/
Great thread posted by Highmtn - I'll be watching that one, as my thoughts have seriously turned to growing a cottage garden, as well. Lol - I've actually tended toward planting in that fashion for many years, and didn't quite realize that it had a name...! :-)
I like to plant perennials while I can still see some foliage from spring bulbs (or mark where the clumps are)... that way, I don't put a big plant square on top of a clump of bulbs. You can always nudge any bulbs off to the side if you find them when digging your planting holes. It's especially nice to have spring blooming bulbs together with perennials that die back each year... by the time the bulbs are done blooming, the plants are sprouting up again!
Hi, bookreader, Good luck on your new cottage garden border. I can't resist throwing in my 2 cents on ideas for you, too:
We plant bulbs in our perennial garden, too, but it can be a little tricky, especially if you have bulbs that like it dry in the summer like allium, eremurus, and some daffodils. Then you have to water carefully so that the bulbs don't succumb to rot. I hand water around the alliums and eremurus because those bulbs are so expensive and I don't want to lose them. And I rearrange/edit my daffs and muscari just after bloom time to make a better 'garden picture' with the perennials for next year, too.
There are a few 'classic' failsafe combinations of bulbs and perennials like daylilies and daffodils. They go together because the sprouting daylily foliage camoflages the leftover daffodil foliage and they like similar growing environments, too. The combination I use from time to time is daffodils (which bloom in April here) combined with tall iris (which bloom in May in our garden. The large iris bloom kind of distracts the eye from the daff foliage. Then I cut my daff foliage after 6 weeks (even though most books say to wait 8 or 10 for best rebloom). I just can't stand it any longer! There are several books in the library that discuss plant pairings that really work together that you will want to check out, too.
I don't have a lot of tulips in the garden because of the critters, but if I do plant them, they go into pots and I place them around the garden. But these tulips don't rebloom for me, so I usually buy bulbs on sale at the end of season and toss my spent bulbs. Forget me nots are a classic pairing with tulips. Also pansies (but they don't come back for me) and violets. And periwinkle (vinca) with white daffodils, especially under trees.
Camassia (another bulb) pairs with peony here, but again you have to watch the watering.
I am trying to do sequential blooming in my borders: first my daffodil and muscari bloom in late march and April; then in May it's the columbines, coral bells, late tulips (in pots), digitalis, allium and the border and intermediate iris (they bloom earlier than tall bearded iris); after that, clematis and tall bearded iris; then a lull in June with not much in bloom; and then in July the bright summer perennials like coreopsis, milkweeds, daisies various, coneflowers, rudbeckies, butterfly plant, etc., start coming in. I don't grow roses here because of the high humidity and the chemicals they require to bloom well here (so sad not to have them) but clematis and iris pair well with them, too.
One downside is that the garden crammed full of plants does not display each plant at its best nor are my plants very 'well grown'. I am always struggling to remedy that and be more 'respectful' of each flowers needs. But anyway, that is the way I do our 'cottage' garden.
I will say that having so many plants crammed into the same border requires a lot of leaf mold amendment in the springtime. And well rotted manure and so on through the seasons too.
Good luck with your project! I look forward to seeing lots of photos this summer!