Iberis (candytuft) hardy perennial to zone 3 is my recommendation for the driveway divider. There is one cultivar which only grows to 6 inches, others are taller.

Iberis blooms in early spring. I once had a neighbor who used it as a subshrub in front of her house, with alternanthera in season.

Dwarf cultivars of some tall plants will broaden your choices. I was just looking at old pics of dwarf snapdragons.

Nice for a cottage garden are floribunda roses. Careful searching will find some that are disease resistant and small growers. One of my favs is Charisma, an orange/red with lots of repeat blooms.

Nell

I live on an urban sized lot - attached is a picture of my front garden in August of last year.

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That's lovely!

Wow! That's gorgeous!

That is lovely! I have been hanging around for ages and just joined. I am in Adelaide, South Australia similar to California I guess. For a small cottage garden you could have dianthus/pinks, stachys, statice, cerinthe, california poppies, moss roses - anyone say when?

This garden was absolutely beautiful. All plants were direct sowed in a small medial strip by a highway.

Here is a link that might be useful: Direct Sow a Garden

gonativegal that' lovely. I recognize the rudbekias, and coneflowers. not much else. What have you put in?

herblady - what a good idea. I love that combination of wildflowers - particualr teh silene amongst all that colours and the red poppies. I'll add that to my want list.

I do have a comment about your plans to use the newspapers to layer your bed. I did that before with poppies and sunflower and I was rather disappointed with the results. The newspaper prevented the roots of my annuals from penetrating through the ground and despite a thick layer of soil on top of the paper, the plants became stunted. Just letting you know. It may not affect shallow rooted plants but it will certainly affect those deep rooted plants.

I have a small front yard cottage garden. We put it in late last summer so it's not really much to look at yet. We did plant a bunch of bulbs in the fall so I'm looking forward to seeing them in the spring.

Here is a link that might be useful: my small cottage garden pics

Ianna, I have a very small garden too. I'm posting a link to my Photobucket album with pics taken May 2006 - I didn't have much time in subsequent years to post pics on the same month, but it hasn't changed much.

Eduarda

Here is a link that might be useful: My garden in May

I will try to post pics tonight from home, but we used to have a park trailer on a corner lot in a beach town as our vacation home. The ground was mostly pure sand, so I had to experiment with plants that could deal with sand, salt air, possible drought, definitely no upkeep as we were only there on weekends. I made a foundation bed around 2 sides of the trailer and it was about 2 ft deep. The bed started in the shade and wrapped around to the sunny side of the trailer. From memory, I will try to go around the trailer from shade to sun and list the plants that worked for 3 years: Japanese painted fern, light purple heuchera, 2 different short astilbe, dwarf hydrangea, hosta, maidenhair fern, dwarf rhododendron, tricyrtis, bearded iris, daylilies, Autumn Glow Sedum, purple coneflowers, rudbeckia, geum, 2 clematis on one obelisk, Knock Out rose, Lady in Red hydrangea and 2 dwarf azaleas. I will try to post pics but it really was like a single line of plants, so I tried to make the combinations and textures pleasing, and have 3 seasons of bloom. I was pleased with the results, and the plants were very tough !

Just this past September, I had to dig up every one of those plants and bring them to my house in PA, as we had the old trailer torn down and they gutted the lot. So, all those plants have been re-distributed to suitable places in my yard last fall, but we'll see if they all make the overwintering process. The new modular cottage is in it's place on the lot now, but there is very little room for a garden :( I think I will do a direct sow annual garden at the beach this year, until I can make a plan for the landscaping in fall.

My yard isn't terribly small, but I do try to utilize every available space.

When you cannot expand, go vertical! Grow vines up your fence and house. Use arbors, and obelisks are great for growing smaller vines.
Pots! Containers are a great way to expand a garden. There are lots of spots where plants can't grow, like the front steps, where you CAN put a container. Hanging baskets are great too. Hang them from your house, a tree branch, or even a 'Sheperd's Rod'.

Like threedogsmom said, think texture. I always try to design my gardens with texture in mind so that everything will look nice even if the plants are not in bloom.
Look at other peoples gardens to get an idea of what plant blooms when in your area.
Get plants that are not invasive and stay small even when mature. Its also good to get plants that are long blooming and look attractive even after they are done putting on flowers.
Hope this helps you!
CMK

Iana,

I live in the midwest - with heavy soil & cold winters so I've tried to pick tough plants. They're a combination of natives & drought tolerant non-natives. There is no supplemental watering except for the pot. Some of them are as follows:

Perennials:

Peony - Unknown semi double variety
Bearded Iris (unknown var)
Purple, Yellow & Orange Coneflowers
Allium 'Christophii'
Little Bluestem
Switchgrass 'Heavy Metal'
Ironweed
Joe Pye Weed
Butterfly Milkweed
Allium cernuum - Nodding Wild Onion
Common Garden Phlox - dark pink
Carex bicknelli - Native sun tolerant Sedge
Phlox pilosa - Prairie Phlox
Oenothera fruticosa - Sundrops
Globe Thistle - Echinops ritro
Siberian Iris
Yellow Columbine (unknown var)
Wild Columbine (Native midwestern orange variety) - Aquilegia canadensis
Ohio Spiderwort
False Sunflower
Wild Senna
Artemisia 'Silver King'
Euphorbia cyparissias - Spurge
Common Mountain Mint
New England Aster
Baptisia
Foxglove Beardstongue
Anenome canadensis - Canadian Anenome
Anenome x hybrida - Japanes Anenome 'September Charm'
Giant Sedum
Knockout Roses

Annuals:

Cosmos
Verbena bonariensis
Snapdragons

For a pick me up that's colorful for most of the season I have large low glazed pot filled with Canna Lilies, Wave petunias (purple), white zinnias & potato vines.

The native perennials, except where noted are primarily (like the foxglove) the straight species rather then cultivars.

The following additional pictures are of the garden during the end of May & late September so you can get an idea of how the tapestry of the garden changes.

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Here are the photos I promised. I now realize these were taken in May of 2006, which is why the plants are small. I wish I had some pics from this past fall right before I removed everything. Oh well, fast forward in your mind 2 years and everything was about 3X bigger than it is in the pics.
Shady front part:
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Half shade into sun on end:
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Longer sunny side:

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End of bed, sunny side:
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Clematis closeup:
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Everyone, thank you for your excellent suggestions. I think I now have some good ideas on what to do with my front yard. Gonativegal - thanks so much for listing your plants. I need hardy plants in my area as well. Although I;m listed a zone 5b in Canada, I believe my area compares to a US zone 4.

Eduardia - nice to hear from you. I've always admired your garden. Just love those roses particularly the one that looks like a pink/peach double cup rose. Are these David Austen types?

Threedogsman - love that look. It may just work for that median I was talking about. Although it faces a south east direction, it does have parts that are shaded and so your ideas could work out for that part of it. Some of the ideas I could also use for my backyard fence which has lots of light shaded areas.

herblady I still love the idea of the wildflower garden and will use this idea for the main garden. I can imagine the wildflowers peeking through the ornamental grasses I have in that area.

"Just love those roses particularly the one that looks like a pink/peach double cup rose. Are these David Austen types?"

I believe you are talking about Jude, The Obscure, and yes, it is a David Austin rose. Everyone who sees it, loves it. Not only is it vigorous and beautiful, the fragrance is also wonderful.

Eduarda

Thank you eduardia. Because my front yard is so compact, I can only keep 3 David Austen roses. I may try to replace one of them with Jude. It looks fantastic.

Ianna

Eduarda, I love your garden!

gonativegal - love your garden, love the paths, love all of the plants and you have kept a wonderfully overblown cottage garden tidy!!! Wow!! I am in awe.

Eduarda - I covet your roses!!! I am trying again, slowly, to add roses to my new beds. Fingers crossed!!

Nancy.

gonnativegal,

I love your native flowers. Beautiful walkway. Love how the plants spill out into the walk.

OK, so this isn't 'cottage' per se, but there was a huge sprawling juniper in this bed last spring. I planted corn, sorghum, and a castor for the centre, used canna roots, geraniums, rudbeckia, cosmos, sweet potato vine, and portulaca for the low stuff. I was totally amazed at the height and diversity of colours after just one season where there had been just a nasty shrub. My hubby, btw, is 6' tall. Gotta love castors for instant 'tree!'.
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clever idea incorporating vegetables in your cottage garden.

After the discussion on inflation and cost of garden materials came up. I've become convinced that these year's garden will incorporate vegetables instead of being purely ornamental.

Ianna

I've noticed on My Folia, that most of the gardeners there are focused on vegetables rather than flowers. Seed starting is full of veggie seedlings -- even things like squash and okra that I would start in the ground when the ground warms, later. I think there's a trend....

Nell

Yum, love okra. I recall they grow leaves that remind of me castor bean and flowers that resemble hibiscus.

There is a trend in vegetable growing and I think for the benefit of everyone, we should encourage our younger friends and colleages to garden vegetables. It's a way to get them into gardening. There's a discussion concerning the declining no. of people gardening and I fault the lack of interest and the lack of gardening education among younger folks and therefore, this is a way to get them into the hobby.

Ianna