A Cottage Garden in Winter

February 15th, 2022

How do you make sure your cottage garden is beautiful even when there’s snow on the ground? We’ll share our favorite tips below.

While cottage gardens may look effortless, there are a few key elements that make them feel truly cohesive and inspiring in the growing season:

– a mix of flower shapes, colors, and sizes

– repetition of plants

– very close spacing (also cuts down on weeds and gives the garden a full look)

– loose habits and little to no pruning

– ever-present pollinators (just plant and they’ll come buzzing!)

Thankfully many of the same things make a cottage garden beautiful in winter too: 

– unpruned plants

– a mix of dried flower shapes and sizes

– an uncleared garden with leaf litter to shelter hibernating pollinators

The key element:

– plants with very strong stems dispersed throughout the garden (when the snow crushes weaker stemmed flowers these will still be standing aloft, keeping you company for months)

   

Here are a few shrubs that promise to stand strong against the wind, snow, and ice to give you something beautiful to look at:

Dig In

Learn to pair perennials + shrubs considering texture, seasons of interest + more.

A deep dive on avocados with more twists and turns than you’d expect!

Plan your cottage garden with plant and layout recommendations.

Written by
Kristina Howley

Kristina Howley

I am all in when it comes to gardening. Almost every part of the experience delights me – new leaves emerging in spring, pollinators buzzing in summer, birds devouring berries in fall, and the somber beauty of seed heads in winter. Thanks to a background in horticulture and gardening my own clay-filled, flowery USDA zone 5b plot, I’ve learned plenty of practical things as well. I like sharing these joys and lessons with my fellow gardeners and soon-to-be gardeners any way I can.

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