Wow ~ What a lovely cottage you have! Go to Cottage Gardens forum at the addy below.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/cottage/

FlowerLady

Paintergal,
your cottage is truly wonderful!!!
I agree with Flower Lady - go to a Cottage Garden Forum (I personally spend more time there then I should :-)). Lots and lots of great ideas and pictures.
~Natalie, who's house looks very traditional, but the garden is a cottage one.

Thanks, FlowerLady and Natalie. This site confuses me so. I appreciate the navigation advice! :)

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Here is a link that might be useful: my some ideas

Whatever you do, leave the white flowering shrubs. They're beautiful! Are they hydrangeas or Viburnum?

I second theresa. I would add some foxglove, some roses, salvia, iris, catmint, and poppies out front. I think a dwarf lilac or butterfly bush would be nice as well. It would be so gorgeous if you built a shallow arbor to frame that picture window and then put climbing rose on it.

If you go to the cottage garden forum, take a look at reginaz's gardens--they're lovely.

How fun for you! Cottage gardens have always been my favorite because planning isn't really necessary. Try making a list of all of the traditional cottage garden plants (roses, hollyhock, foxglove, sweet william etc) that you love and have fun planting them! Cottage gardens can be messy if you want them to, I often think the unplanned ones that look a little wild look the best.

One thing that I think of when imagining a cottage garden is an issue of scale and intimacy. That is a reasonably big front yard and it feels quite open. So perhaps some boundaries can be created. Other ideas that come to mind are of lush, overgrown plantings, partially covered structures, various textures and colors.

Suggestions:

Boundary:
A low fence of some kind, either a split rail, or white picket fence or something of the sort out toward the street and/or between the garden and the driveway on the side. And it doesn't need to completely enclose the front yard. . . it can be in certain areas to act as a foil for plants to grow up and on. Alternatively, you can do a garden wall of some kind. See link for my garden wall I built out of concrete. Cost: ~ $100 in gas money to haul free concrete out to my house.

People "IN" the Garden:
Find a way to draw people into the garden. A paved "court" area in the middle zone with some metal chairs and a table would be nice. The paving could be crushed rock or pavers of some kind. Who knows, perhaps even re-route your front walkway so that visitors enter at an opposite side of the front yard and get to walk through the garden to your front door. At the side-walk side of the yard you could build an arbor for them to walk through. This also helps with creating a boundary and enclosing the cottage garden.

Arbor On The Wall:
Removing the shutters on either side of the main window and building an arbor against the wall would look great. You could get some climbing roses or something going up the side of the house.

The White Flowering Bushes:
Those white flowering bushes against the house in the right of the photo look great. But I don't see a strong reason they have to stay put. I wouldn't be afraid to dig them up and move them to a different location.

Grass:
When I picture in my mind a cottage garden I don't see a lawn. Could just be my limited imagination. But you probably couldn't go wrong replacing most of that lawn. . . even if you don't put any pavers down in the middle for a paved court I can easily see cutting the lawn area down by 50% with planting beds for the rest of the 50% that are over flowing with plants and flowers.

Inspirational Resources:
Check out some cottage garden picture books at the local book store. In addition to Gardenweb forums I'm sure those would be a great resource.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rubble Wall

I forgot to add to my last post under Inspirational Resources: Type in "cottage garden" in google and click the image search. Lots of interesting cottage garden photos pop up.

Here is a link that might be useful: Googled

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