About Angela and In the Cottage Garden

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My Story

I adore cottage gardens. Unfortunately, I don't live in a cottage in the countryside. Instead, I live in a 1950's suburban ranch. I've decided not to let that bother me. So I am on a personal quest to create the garden of my dreams, overflowing with flowers, fragrances, birds and butterflies. I'm not naturally gifted in this area and I don't have any training. I'm making mistakes along the way. A lot of mistakes. I've been making mistakes for years, in fact.

When I & my husband bought our first home in 2003, a 1930's English-style cottage, the garden was a blank slate. Overgrown rhododendrons and scrubby grass were the only plantings, and the back yard was dominated by a massive (and I mean massive) deck that felt like a stage to the rest of the neighborhood.

I knew I wanted the garden to feel a certain way, have a certain look. An English-style cottage garden, a secret garden, secluded and private and quiet, overflowing with flowers. A delight to the senses, while still being relatively easy to maintain, and fit in my tiny yard. How I would achieve this, I had no idea, but what I lacked in experience I made up for with enthusiasm. So, armed only with a love of old-fashioned flowers and a shovel, I set out to create the garden of my dreams.

I failed. Miserably.

I knew I wanted flowers, so I started ripping out sod and putting in perennials. I didn't have money for trees, shrubs or structure, but I figured lots of flowers would fix that. I traded and swapped and collected free plants by the dozen. I took everything that was offered to me, even plants that weren't the right color or my "taste" because they were cheap or free and I had a huge space to fill.

Because I was taking in such random plants, every time I brought something new home I'd have to reorganize the beds and try to get some sense out of the mix. Or I'd decide that I needed a new bed for the new plants and I'd start ripping out sod willy nilly. All my time in the garden was spent trying to make sense out of the mess and regular maintenance went down the tubes. I kept thinking I'd be able to catch up as soon as I figured it out, but then I had a baby, my husband went out of town for work and the weeds started to take over.

When I did try to tackle the garden again, I decided it was the landscaping itself that wasn't working. My designs were too conventional, not creative enough. I started doing the gardens over. I moved trees, moved beds, move pathways. Installed gravel, removed gravel, installed stone edging, removed stone edging, and moved more trees. Nevermind the plants and shrubs, which by now had been moved so many times their growth was permanently stunted.

What a mess.

Desperate and confused, I started to think my dream of an enchanted, secret cottage garden was just not achievable. I gave up. Then, in the summer of 2007 I sold my house and found a fixer in Oregon's wine country, a 1950's ranch with 1980's decor, but all one level with a fantastic floor plan and a big yard. Ugly, but very functional. We bought it, moved our stuff into the garage and focused on getting the old house ready for the market.

I had watched enough HGTV to know that I had major curb appeal issues, so I started doing the garden yet again. But this time, instead of trying to be "clever," I just did the simplest, easiest thing that I thought would appeal to most people. I removed all the random structures and beds and put new sod and a tree in the middle of each yard with beds of shrubs and perennials around each perimeter. I grouped the perennials I had into like groups to create maximum impact.

It was like the garden came into focus. It was still new and spare, but the bones were there. The basics were there. I could see how my original vision would work, if I had just started with this simple palette.

It wasn't the garden, it was me. I had tried too hard to be clever and original and had mucked up the space with too many ideas, too many structures and too many plants. Simple design isn't uninspired, it's a gracious structure within which to showcase wonderful things. Graceful arbors, functional pathways, green perimeter hedges and select trees. These are all things that provide the structure within which to have all the eclectic, fabulous, overblown cacophany of flowers that I love.

Finally, I think I'm getting somewhere. I have a long way to go. I have a lot to learn and I have a ton of questions. And now I have a 1950's suburban yard with no inherent charm of its own and a big pile of overgrown rhododendrons. But I have an idea.

I also have a fire in my belly. I want everyone out there, everyone who is struggling with how to create the cottage home of their dreams, to feel like they have someone they can talk to. I want to help. I still don't know exactly what I'm doing, but I'm doing my best, and if I can do it, you can too.

I'm so glad you're here to take this trip with me.

Best,