I lost a pine tree about 6 years ago and made a similar-sized cottage garden in the sole sun-space it made in my yard. I have had fun with reseeders that don't take too much water but have dragged a hose during some drought weeks. Here are some additional water-thrifty and long-blooming suggestions: melampodium (reseeds), salvia coccinea, both the pink-and-white and white reseed, tall ageratum (watch this one - can take over but rips up easily enough), white and yellow, red four-o'clocks, belamcanda, dianthus velvet n lace and sooty, agastache rugosa, rosemary, lambs ears beside crimson pygmy barberry, coreopsis superman, lantana chapel hill, daylily pardon me, happy returns, feverfew, vinca, chrysanthemum, penstemon iron maiden, bellflower (platycodon), black and blue salvia, and Johnny's has "gruppenblau" salvia farinacea seed that I planted 5 years ago that has been perennial here in 7A. I did try larkspur, corn poppies, batchelor buttons last fall at Thanksgiving and had low germination for the amount of seed spread but not covered - thought maybe a small amount of mulch might have helped but from Tamelask's comments, maybe not!

Hi Slowjane!! I am fellow SoCal cottage gardener. My penstemons tend to look very pretty the first year and then get rather dissembled looking and bloom less. I may be doing something wrong. In addition to Annie's Annuals, which is in NorCal, there is also Digging Dog. They have some great California natives. Rolling Green is pricey but they have got terrific plants; never found a pest on one. Matilija Nursery has the most wonderful plants; they are up in Moorpark. So here are my winner plants: Black eyed Susan does very well here. My thunbergia grows like a demon but refuses to bloom; my neighbors' looks heavenly. I can not explain this. Favorites in my cottage garden: California native lupines (no water.) Echiums of all varieties. All the milkweeds native to California and Mexico do great. Coreopsis do very well. I've never gotten anything but the plain old pink coneflowers to grow, but those ones do very nice. Cosmos do respectably with a little water. Four o'clocks need a bit of water but not a lot. If you don't mind watering a bit and you have dry shade, fuchsias do well here. Any and all salvias tend to be quite enthusiastic and the hummers like them. Tansy get spectacular here but comes and goes. Vinca is quite pretty and self-sows, but I think it's labeled as invasive and you are not meant to plant it. (Mine came with the house. I tear out some, leave some.) All my sedum are happy with very little water. With irises: if i buy them locally, they do fine. If I buy them elsewhere, they croak. The same is true of daylillies. I have my garden set up in 'water' and 'no water' zones so I can have the flowers I love so much but I can make the water conservation folks happy, too. I justify the roses by conserving water elsewhere. I have a succulent garden I have created by using leftover succulent bouquets. They've become all the rage, and I work at USC where they have these all over. So when events are done, I beg for one or two of the arrangements, take the plants home, stick them around, see what lives and dies and looks good. It's quite random and lovely and it's been cheap! Most succulents you can just stick in the ground. I think one should always grow rosemary by the garden gate. This post was edited by DrPekeMom on Mon, Jun 23, 14 at 0:18

Lilyfinchâ¦We had the arbor already. Here is a pic. We widened the beds and added a curvy grass path. To left of arbor we moved my reblooming lilac bush and to the right of arbor, I already had climbing roses that we planted last year..so maybe by next year, they will start climbing over the arbor!

I see that some people in this thread mentioned using Pentas for a Cottagey feel in a Florida garden, but I think one key to getting Pentas to work is to get the non-dwarfed varieties. As England's Alan Titchmarsh mentioned in one of his specials, "A Cottage Garden should be billowing, blousy and a bubbling froth of flowers." You don't get this from the dwarfed varieties foud in the big box stores. You need the 3-4 ft vaieties which I mostly see at plant fairs and sales. The Lake County demonstration gardens, Discovery Gardens, has an example Cottage Garden section. I will have to swing down there again for some pictures and names, but the stuff they had planted you just don't find at your average nursery, much less the big box stores.