In September, Cottage Gardens of Petaluma has a big sale of all perennials and they have lots of varieties of lavenders and salvias in 1 gal sizes and many other drought tolerant plants. They keep their plants looking really healthy as well.

Bluestone's plants are tiny when you get them so you've got to wait a year or two for your thrill.

No shipping from Cottage Gardens but I believe you're in the Bay Area?

Diane

Yes, Paula, I've done this approach at home and it works well. Heuchera, salvia and true geraniums are my favorites. I'm not crazy about bearded iris, but the spiky leaves look great mixed in. I have white phlox, which keeps on blooming as I deadhead. My centranthus is getting crowded out, but it was great. I have had luck with lavenders, and am particularly fond of L. pinnata, although it freezes here every year. Another plant that I use as an annual is African blue basil. I water sparingly, so annuals and water-thirsty plants don't survive.

I don't really think of it as an English cottage garden look, because it's not really lush, but it has the sort of profusion that Vita Sackville-West talked about. Naybe it's California Cottage, instead?

I do have some garden photos - maybe I'll get some posted in the next couple of days. When you come up to Sacramento, I'd be glad to show you my garden at home (same goes for any of you GW folks). It's not a showplace, but the companion plants do work out pretty well.
Anita

I have such a garden. Mexican sage (salvia lucantha) is great here in our Mediterranean climate. I didn't see it in any of the catalogues, but every other garden in my town has it, so I finally found it. It starts blooming in May, and continues non-stop until Oct/Nov. Also of course agapanthas - you can get them blue, white, or miniature.

Almost any bulb from South Africa does well here with practically no watering. Sparaxis is my favorite - it does come in white, or white with light purple markings. Also ixea (sp?) - the one where the flowers look like tiny iris at the ends of long stems. Naked Ladies are another good one for Fall bloom, if you have other plants in front of them to cover up their stems (their leaves come out in Spring, but die down before the flower stems come up in the Fall).

What I did was to walk around my town looking at very old houses with neglected gardens, vacant lots, etc, in the Spring to see what was blooming. Those plants are guaranteed to survive! There was an amazing variety of them.

Jackie

Don't forget Mostly Natives.

Anita, California Cottage -- I like that, very much.

Pamela, Mostly Natives is a great place. What fun we all had there a year or so ago now. I'm planning to use lots of natives next to the back patio and out by the fence, but not so much in this bed. We should all plan another trip sometime.

Diane, as for Bluestone's small plants, well, I actually like them small. I used to buy from Bluestone back when they had the way smaller plants about ten years ago. They don't sell tham that size anymore.

Jackie, I do have some Mexican sage in another bed. I like the description of your walk around. In my neighborhood, this was the old house with an old garden before I started gardening. Way too much tall bearded iris, agapanthus, shasta daisies gone wild, a few virused roses, society garlic, spring starflower and lots of fruit trees. I dug up most of the TB iris and all of the shasta daisies; kept a few of the agapanthus which alas the dogs tore up; banished the society garlic (which I despise); replaced the roses one by one; added to the fruit tree; and planted the spring starflower everywhere I thought it might take.

Paula, I put in Veronica (the spiky version) last year and it looks great against roses. Got it at Annies. I love all sages and salvias, but it is hard to find smaller ones. Penstemons are lovely and of course geraniums and asters

but you have a eye and plan well and are not afraid to sp if necessary. can't wait to see the additions.

Carol

I wanted to add the common marjoram which I grow against the east-facing wall of our house where it gets two feet tall and much wider and blooms at least nine months of the year, constantly covered with bees when it flowers. I cut it back in the winter and that's all the care it receives except minute amounts of water when I water the roses next to it.

Cass, since you rarely post I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you that I visited your garden on HMFR and was amazed and enchanted at the beauty of your roses. I love the varieties you grow, and you grow them so superbly.

Ingrid

Thanks, Cass, for that very helpful list. The last few days of blazing sun have left much of my Novato garden wilted and crispy. My garden is certainly providing me a lesson in trying and revising!

Pattie

Pattie, perennials are far fussier than roses about location. Perennials that grow in like weeds in Mill Valley, like Erigeron karvinskianus and Convovulus mauritius, fry into brown crisps in Bennett Valley. Constant winds in Mill Valley are challenging but different from the challenge of high heat and sandy loam in Bennett Valley. Perennials are, by definition, short-lived, but I demand survival for several years. The single exception is Lantana 'Gold Mound' which is not hardy in Bennett Valley but which I plant as an annual.

Ingrid, I agree completely about marjoram. I grow both Italian and Greek marjoram throughout my garden. It's been a great garden plant for me.

If anyone knows of any dwarf Euphorbias, I'd love their names. It's called gopher bane for a reason....

This is a good thread. We have more annual rainfall than you Californians, about 40", but have long summer droughts and very heavy soil, somewhat compensated by the garden's being on a slope. We get snow most winters--last winter was a wet one, with five feet of snow that melted however promptly--but temperatures rarely fall below 20F, tending to stay in the thirties and forties much of the time during winter. I grow my plants as others have described here: roses and shrubs underplanted with subshrubs, perennials, bulbs, and self-seeding annuals. We don't water plants after the first year. Last year we went four months with one centimeter of rain: most things survived. We keep a heavy mulch on our beds.

My plant list:
Bearded iris, which I DO like; this is unkillable if you don't overwater it. Also I. orientalis, more commonly known as I. ochroleuca. Snakeshead iris, an iris relative, is good.
Lavender, mostly lavandins (L. angustifolia x L. latifolia) and L. angustifolia and close relatives: these are hardy and don't mind heavy soil. L. stoechas may need looser soil; my finely cut tender lavender died to the ground last winter but is coming back. L. lanata is supposed to be tender, but I've never seen cold damage on mine: it has brilliant silvery foliage and violet flowers, and does well in hot, dry places.
Artemisias of every kind, perovskia. I hear some of these can be invasive; in my garden I think they employ all their energies just staying alive. Caryopteris is good and handsome; sometimes it seeds.
Thymes don't hold up well, but I think they might do better at the feet of roses with some protection from sun and wind. Mother-of-thyme (Thymus serpyllum) does very well this way as a ground cover, as does the caraway-scented thyme, the botanical name of which escapes me.
Common culinary sage does well for me and is a handsome plant that the bees love; if it's particularly happy it will self-seed. The form with purple leaves dies out, but the yellow-variegated kind does great without summer water: mine stays prostrate. I'm beginning to discover the ornamental sages. I was recently given S. microphylla and S. 'Indigo Spires'; the giver tells my they both do well in a dry garden, but I'm watering mine as they're in their first year. S. guaranitica is a magnificent plant, but it gets big (think two meters tall and wide, though somewhat open in growth) and needs a little shelter from sun and wind, but it's not fussy.
Rosemary in its many forms. It can be killed by a very wet winter, but I just plant a new plant: like most of these aromatic plants it's very easy to grow from cuttings. It stretches out and roots as it goes.
Dahlias and kniphofias (red hot poker) are surprisingly modest in their water needs, at least if they're in heavy soil. Spring-blooming bulbs do their growing in winter and early spring when there's water, then go dormant in summer during the dry period. Daffodils, tulips, crocus all thrive here. Many of them need winter chill, and critters like them, except for daffodils, which have the enormous virtue of being poisonous. Common daylily (Hemerocallis fulva) grows everywhere. In California I'd be checking out the native bulbs.
More aromatics: every kind of Nepeta; lavender cotton (Santolina) in all its varieties; Phlomis, to which a friend recently introduced me; this year I'm trying hyssop in the open garden.
Field poppies, the annual red poppy that you see in Impressionist paintings; that stately weed mullein (it does take up a lot of space its second year).
Then there are the drought-tolerant shrubs, but that's another discussion.

Gardening is always an experiment. Our garden is influenced by our deep and heavy soil and by our usually generous annual rainfall. Since we don't water in summer we usually can grow plants like rosemary in heavy ground, but if we do get a lot of rain in late spring or summer, rosemary can die. A dry garden in summer means that we usually don't have to worry about our tall bearded iris rotting or losing our daffodils. We have enough winter chill for temperate climate plants. There are so many factors that influence a plant's growth that it's worth trying ones you like.

Melissa

I live in one of the rainiest areas in italy, with about 1500mm/year but all my garden is set up in a way that I could live in a much drier aerea without irrigating.
Thus, even in case of an exceptional drought, my garden is fine and green.
At the same time, the winter is often cold (-8C = 20°F), so I need plant that tolerate... everything!

I would suggest you to look for suggestions for gardining in australia, which is nearly desertic, and in the south of italy, which is very hot and dry.

From my personal experience, I would suggest you these plants:
palm trachycarpus fortuneii (contrary to all other plants, it lives happily even in the snow!)
sedum compressum (ideal in a vase!)
sedum spurium
graptosedum
yucca
agave americana (also in bicolor sport, i.e. a.am.variegata)
graptopetalum paraguayense (white leaves, very decorative, virtually immortal)
sempervivum (which in latin means "always alive": a well deserved name!)
bergenia (shady areas, but very drought tolerant)
buxus (needs to be established before being drought tolerant)
lavender
philadelphus
calycanthus floridus (somewhat drought dolerant)
rosemary (there is also a creeping sport, rosmarinus prostratus)
china roses (I bet they'l love your climate!)
chaenomeles superba (early bloomer, then makes sort of small apples, "mela" is latin root for "apple" or "fruit" in general)
poppies (mass planting is amazing)
Helianthus annuus (somewhat drought tolerant)

Also many hemerocallis are drought tolerant, they love full sun, and there are many many different sports. One is called something like "golden star" and is the most floriferous.
-hypericum hidcote, also very drought tolerant
-eucalyptus

Oh! I forgot! the gorgeous Dendranthemum morifolium . In italy it is used only for the deads, you see them only in graveyards but... I find it a wonderful plant, I have many in my garden too. Superstitious people look bad at them, that's funny! :-)

I was thinking some more about this. In Los Altos Hills my mother had what I would call a California Cottage Garden. The climate is almost identical to yours in the chapparal. True cottage gardens consisted of pass along plants. That's exactly what she grew. This was, aloes, agave, "hens and chicks", other succulents, Rose Campion, pelargoniums. Everything was tough and it all came from friends.

{{gwi:23687}}
Cass, here is a dwarf euphorbia that I've grown for many years, E. Myrsinites. It has the same arrow shaped succulent bluegreen leaves and chartreause flowers of many of the bigger euphorbias but is a much smaller plant. It would probably like your climate better than mine, here it gently reseeds in the shelter of other plants.

Rosefolly, I hope you end up with some CA natives in your yard. I can't imagine being without Salvia Clevlandii, S. Pachyphylla, or eriogonum fasciculatum or not from CA but from the Southwest S. chamaedryoides with lovely evergray foilage and true blue flowers.
Maria

To be honest, one reason I chose to move from the Bay Area to Oregon was that I wanted a cottage garden and I just couldn't face either the water I'd have to use to get it in CA, or the plants I'd have to use to approximate the look without using as much water. Many of them are spectacular, but they just don't quite do it for me. Just like I had a client with an amazing loft, huge spaces, high ceilings, modern furniture, clean lines, a few sculptural items -- smashing and spectacular, but totally not my style.

Here it is very easy to do cottage. We have similar conditions as Melissa, 40" a year with a longish dry summer and heavy soil. (Our summer is probably slightly less long and dry.)

Now if I could just continue wedging stuff in there so it started to actually look cottagey....

Oh, fun! E. myrsinites looks like one I will try. I wonder if this is the same Euphorbia that croaked when we had a very wet winter with twice the usual rainfall. And Melissa, I agree about bearded iris. They are wonderful tho they suffer a bit when it's 95 for days on end.