The Prettiest Annuals for a Cottage Garden

Who doesn’t love wandering around the pathways of a blooming, colorful cottage garden? It’s almost a kind of meditation for nature lovers and frustrated victims of modern daily life. When you’re sitting on an old-fashioned wooden bench smelling the springtime breeze and watching butterflies flutter around, it’s hard to imagine you can also achieve this cozy look in your own backyard—but surprisingly, you actually can!

This gardening style requires no strict rules and it’s relatively inexpensive and easy to care for.

Perennials & Annuals

If you want to turn your very own outdoor space into a romantic cottage garden, you can start by learning the differences between the most popular types of plants and their specific properties. When it comes to lifespan, we can roughly classify flowers in two main categories called perennials and annuals, though there are certain overlapping categories and special cases.

Perennial plants are deemed permanent, since they typically go through several seasons with rather short blooming times each year; whereas annuals have a one-year lifespan with longer blooming times. Annuals need to be planted again each year, but they provide your garden with instant color, size and volume. They are rather inexpensive as they can be grown from seed if you’re aiming to get a significant amount of plants at once; and the close spacing of the flower beds doesn’t allow much room for weeds.

Mix & Match

Ideally, a cottage garden should feature a combination of different kinds of plants for a rich and complete look. During your next visit to the local botanical garden, you can learn about what grows best in your area, and their preferences in lighting, watering and soil. After that, you can plan the design of your garden to have that relaxed, informal look by using tall flowering perennials, hardy biennials, climbing and border plants, and of course the amazingly radiant annuals. The overall feel should be graceful and charming, and homey structures like arbors, benches, fences and walls can add to the natural beauty of the flowers. The key to creating a perfect cottage garden—no matter your preferences in plants and decoration—is to densely plant lots of flowers with romantic colors.

When it comes to colors, annuals are the stars of the garden. Pastel pinks and innocent whites are a classic in traditional cottage gardens, but you can also opt for bright yellows, blazing reds and electric blues. It all comes down to your personal taste, and you can always experiment with new plants and colors the coming year. Here’s a brief list of my own favorites among the most popular, prettiest annuals!

Marigold

Marigold is one of the most common types of annual flowers to bring the color of sunshine to any garden! It’s easy to grow in any zone with a fair amount of sun, its seeds germinate quickly and it blooms in about a couple of months. These gorgeous bright orbs will also attract beneficial pollinators to your cottage garden and fill it with life.

Zinnia

Another easy-to-grow source of allure, zinnia flowers bloom in almost every bright color you can think of. It’s a great choice for children and first-time gardeners as it grows quickly and reliably, and it demands very little care.

Cosmos

The name for this elegant flower is no coincidence—it means harmony and ordered universe in ancient Greek. And it is harmonious indeed; you can grow cosmos flowers simply by scattering seeds in a bed, then watch them stay in bloom for months at a time. It is a very low-maintenance plant that comes in a rainbow of colors, also helping your entire garden bloom by attracting bees, butterflies and birds.

Bachelor’s Button

Also called cornflower, this European wildflower requires minimal care and reseeds freely. I particular love the blue of cornflowers in cottage gardens. Its frilly flowers are pretty robust—and surprise, surprise—they are actually edible! You can use these vibrant blue, sweet and spicy flowers as a garnish for salads, straight from your garden.

Love-Lies-Bleeding

A poetic name for a poetic plant, love-lies-bleeding is a species of the amaranth family. Its seeds have been widely used in various cuisines and for medicinal purposes across different cultures, and its unfading (amaranth is derived from the Greek word “amarantos,” meaning “unfading”) flowers have appeared as a symbol of hopeless love in world literatures. You may not be one to write verses about the drooping crimson flowers of this annual plant, but it will definitely add to the charm of your cottage garden with its unusual, striking appearance.

Sowing the Seeds

Whichever one of these beautiful annuals you decide to plant in your cottage garden, don’t forget to make it your own! There are no wrong answers here, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t own a huge yard to turn into a traditional cottage garden with long pathways and complex structures right now—you can start with just one flower bed beside your front door or under your mailbox, then slowly work on your gardening skills to expand your planting area, and eventually enjoy a profusion of showy, scented flowers that keep changing from month to month, year to year.

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