Have you thought about the smaller grasses, like hakone or blue fescue?

I like calamint, lambs ear and lady's mantle (alchemilla mollis). The smaller geraniums are good too. I have learned from experience not to plant too close to the edge so as to allow room for spreading.

Hi sujiwan!
There are no real rules with Cottage Gardening, so if you like a whole boarder of one plant go for it! It would be like using boxwood as an edging, only with flowering plants. The thing with planting only one kind of plant is that you must use plants that look good all the time, not just in bloom. Using many different plants is great too.

Lavender might be nice. As people on the path walk by they will brush against it, and release the scent. Very cottagy. Mini roses would also be pretty.

Two plants I have always thought would make nice edging plants are Hyssopus officinalis 'Dwarf Blue' (blue flowers- this cultivar has a tidy habit) and Teucrium chamaedrys.
Lots of other plants to use too.

Have you ever been over to the Cottage Garden forum sujiwan? Lots of great pics and ideas over there.
Happy Gardening!
CMK

Here is a link that might be useful: Cottage Garden Forum

I grew Arizona Sun Gaillardia for the first time this yr. and love it. It is small and compact and will flower all summer! I am collecting seed from it and plan on spreading it throughout my landscape.

creeping sedums, lambs ears, donkeytail, salvias all make good edgers

I have some veronica Blue Carpet (gee, I think that's what it is!) along the edges of one of my beds. Very low-growing, with long-blooming little spikes of blue/purple. Fairly neat when not in bloom also.

I also have some dianthus Artic Fire along one bed. Very nice in bloom, kind of cool, tiny foliage, but I'm not sure yet on the spread of this one. I have a feeling it may try to take over the world.

:)
Dee

I like a short creeping campanula, don't know its name. It
blooms for a while, longer if deadheaded and can be increased with quite small and many divisions. Also lady's
mantle, a very finely divided informal artemisia given me as "old man", plain old liriope (fancy kinds probably will do well also)--nice foliage, bloom doesn't come until almost September, old fashioned heuchera with coral blooms.

Chris

On a sunny dry path I have many of the plants already mentioned. Alchemilla, lambs ears (a mixture of different kinds (small leaved version, Helen von Stein, and the species) depending on the adjacent plants. Add pennisetum rubrum fall interest. A happy surprise I recommend is a tiny gold leaved spirea. Holds it shape, never looks ratty, doesn't need dividing or deadheading. Gets about 14 inches high. Sorry I do not remember the name. The flowers are pink which is too bad, but they pass quickly.

It is worth your money to buy the annual "Euphorbia Diamond Frost" This plant is the backbone of my long paths. Good clean foliage, bright white small flowers that sparkle, upright yet soft and billowly, goes with every color shape and texture of other foliage. It is a Proven Winner, but the prices seem to be going down a bit. I have it on good authority that cuttings root easily. I hope this year to keep a couple healthy enough to live to spring when I can try propogating cuttings, which will save quite a bit of money.

spirea 'lemon elf', nepeta 'snow flake', allium senecens 'glaucum', armerias 'dusseldorf pride' and 'rubrifolia', geranium sanguiniam 'visions'

I've made my paths extra wide so that it's OK when plants spill over the walk. Makes for a very imformal look.

mao

Creeping phlox, wave petunias, ajuga, may night salvia, allysum, hens & chicks.

can you grow pink onethera? it's billowy and cottage-ey ;)

I've got some white alyssum that looks charming, self seeds well, spreads out well, chokes out most weeds, and tolerates heat and very dry and poor soil once you water it enough to get it going. It lines my front curving sidewalk, plan to fill in some gaps next spring, then control what seeds into other planted areas. It transplants super easily and blooms all summer once it starts until frost, never gets ratty looking. I love the look and am planning to change some other plants in the border behind it to complement it better!

I don't know what the exact variety is, got it with a mix from American Meadows, but it seems to spread better than others I've tried. When I say spread, I mean spill over the sidewalk but not too far. It's also good for container borders and will trail a bit.

I've also ordered a small veronica I'll use somewhere else. Guess it's called Blue Reflection and should be coming from Bluestone soon I hope, but it only blooms in the spring.

I love my Coreopsis Zagreb - not very creative, but it surely creates a nice mound that is free flowering and maintenance free! I love it.

My Euphorbia chameleon is great too. Such neat foliage that still looks fresh after the summer.

How about some hardy geraniums that would form a nice clump?

I'm getting ready to sow some Iceland Poppies ; 'Gartford's', 'Oregon Rainbows' & pink 'Champagne Bubbles' (16"-20"), for blooms early next spring, to edge with.

I'd like to use the ruffled Pansies 'Super Chalon' & 'Flamenco' that are germinating now, but the deer & rabbits would eat them, so they'll have to be in large pots on the steps & front porch instead, for winter display.

I may try California Poppies 'Summer Sorbet' (10")instead, as those probably won't get eaten.

Some Iberis sempervivens 'Snowflake' (6-10") maybe the majority of the edging, alternately mixed with Scabiosa 'Fama'(20").

If the Campanula carpatica 6-8") produces enough seedlings to transplant, I'll use it with the Iberis & the occasional Dianthus 'Firewitch', (3" out of flower) only because I haven't produced much seeds of the latter.

I'll have to see just how short the 'Hidcote Superior' is (supposedly 16"?), first, to see how suitable it is for use as an edging. Or I may just do a large low & wide (azalea pot?) full of this, at the corner of the front walk & driveway...

interesting idea about using Euphorbia Diamond Frost as an edger. I overwinter it quite easily. It blooms indoors all winter. I have kept it in the basement under flourescent lights with tropicals, but I am going to try it in a window. I think it will be fine.

Also like white alyssum as an edger. Hosta Kabitan is a fast grower and makes a neat edger. Maybe too neat for cottagey. campanula 'blue waterfall'; filipendula 'Kahome'; geranium bakova, many creeping sedums.

Most know, but white alyssum is not a perennial although it behaves like one because it self-seeds so readily.

I saw a perennial version of yellow alyssum in Bluestone catalog.

The problem with alyssum is that if you heavily mulch (which I should have been doing all along, it's hard work for me and costly if I don't have enough leaves saved), I might not have gotten the proliferation of it because I doubt it will self seed well with anything but a light cover of it. I'm guessing many other perennial border plants will push through mulch.

Pansies are a nice idea, haven't successfully grown any yet but plan to try to edge with those as well as grow in containers. I love them but suspect, again, alyssum is easier for me. I don't know if any, I think some, will self seed in my zone, again not with heavy mulch. Anything grown as annuals unless it self-seeds well, you have to replant your borders every year. Johnny jump ups and some violas will self seed. I don't know yet if any bloom all season, think not when it gets too hot.

It boils down to what are most reliable and easy for me, also what is eye-appealing, and alyssums are easy and multiply fast enough to do hundreds of feet of border and some to spare by the second or third year once you have them going well and transplanted. You don't have to plant them too close together as they will blend together forming a contiguous, uniform border. They don't mound much even if they are way too thick.

Oh, they also tolerate part shade but I haven't discovered just how much because most get at least 4 hours of sun. Sometimes it seems longer for blooming to kick in where it's not as sunny, but they catch up and bloom just as well as the ones in more sun.

I'm not trying to twist anyone's arm to do it my way, just that it has been a positive experience in contrast to the many, many disappointments with other plants getting ratty during the season and my soil situation. My soil is ok but there are problems with it as with everything else, too much rain and little to no mulch, it all dries out fast. Mulching would help some for sure but the trees and shrubs compete for available moisture and nutrients so it doesn't make that big of a difference for me, at least this year when it rained so much.

That darn alyssum earlier on I thought would dry up and die in a couple difficult spots, looked like it would die the first couple weeks, watered it a little when I could get to it, and it just took off, then needs little water at all. We had such a crazy summer, read the stats on rain, it was over 21.99 inches in June-August; average normal is 13.07; record is 26.79 in 1993. I know to some that would be a real blessing, and it did ease my load for hauling water, but it caused lots of other problems with my other plants I didn't have in prior summers.

The excessive rain combined with lower-than-average cool temps all summer have negatively impacted our farmers' crops but not too severely overall. We had a drought several years back that practically wiped out whole fields. If that didn't, the flooding in subsequent years nearly did or had to be replanted if there was time. In the overall scheme of things, that matters more than my flowers.

sujiwan, I was curious as to what else you were planning on sowing/planting in your border, besides the edging.
Could you please share your list of other plants?

I know Campanula 'Canterbury Bells' isn't a true perennial, but I would suggest if that's one of your plantings planned for the border, the seed packets available from growitalian.com offers packets by Franchi Sementi, which I'm fairly certain are a whopping whole 2 grams.
I've never seen even a comparable sized packet of this Campanula offered by any American seed co. weighing nearly that much, ever before.
Great 'cottage garden' plant...

First I want to thank everyone who has responded with suggestions!

I have an 80 foot long walkway planted on either side which is narrow so really can only allow one person at a time to walk--no "two abreast" by any means. So, anything that had a tendency to get too tall and flop over has really been a pain to deal with.

Also, my borders haven't been comprehensively planned except to put tall in the back, short in the front and the midsized toward the center--only everything of the M-T ends up becoming larger than expected in my conditions. I am currently widening the border to set things back.

Also, I grow everything from seed so much of the border has been used as holding beds to grow things out and to see how the plants look and work together. I use shrubs, roses, bulbs, perennials and then annuals as fillers so we are talking a great variety of plants to list. Some I have learned "eat their neighbors" --so I think I have something growing only it has been shaded out and become an ex-planting... Learning curve here. I may have several types of plants from the same family that have different growing patterns or flowering times- for ex.--veronicas, leucanthemums or salvias.

Suffice to say that I have mostly sun lovers, 3 seasons of bloom, winter seedhead interest as my intent. :-) Of course, everything is always a work in progress.

Looking back at some pictures to remind myself: poppies, iris, daylilies, sweet william, catmint, painted daisies, alliums, rocket, columbine, peonies, lilies, foxglove, coreopsis,roses, bellflower (tall), scabiosa, salvias, veronicas, lavenders, knipofia, agastaches, jupiter;s beard, anchusa, sundrops, tall sedum, yarrow, asters, boltonia, yellow loosstrife, leucanthemum, phlox, dianthus, milkweed, perovskia, coneflowers, liatris, rudbeckias, monarda, boltonia, chrysanthemums, monkshood, thrift, etc,
Very free flowing cottage garden style with many annuals I won't list.

I can't show a picture of my borders since the person who has the camera eye tends to focus on the individual plants and not the border itself.

While "researching and studing" I ran across a Nepeta "Little Trudy" which only gets 8-10 inches tall. I don't have it but thought I would mention it for you to consider.