Perhaps your yard has been lacking the in-demand landscaping option of a floral English cottage garden.The English cottage garden style is endearing and ever-popular; it is characterized by voluminous decorative grasses, a mishmash of shrubs and perennials, and hardscapes arranged so that it seems as if roses are taking over.
Even for low-maintenance cottage gardens, the meticulous planning and ongoing maintenance required to maintain that meticulously careless greenery may go unnoticed by looking at these nearly wild gardens. Time and effort are also imperative if you want your English cottage garden to have any kind of curb appeal. That being stated, would prospective purchasers embrace or avoid the English cottage garden trend? Is it true that an English cottage garden improves curb appeal? According to experts, it all comes down to how the garden is designed and cultivated.
An Increase in Notoriety
Requests for the English cottage garden style have risen over the last year, according to Yardzen statistics for 2022.
Landscape architect Kevin Lenhart of Yardzen offers some ideas on why this style is becoming more and more well-liked. One of them is the evolving perception of the broad, green lawn that is so popular in the US: Some claim that these lawns reduce biodiversity (even if you take part in No Mow May) and may even contaminate the surrounding ecology with harmful fertilizers and toxins from gas-powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers.
“When you think about all the area that lawns occupy across the country, it’s an immense missed opportunity to support biodiversity and just to have more aesthetic variety and better expressions of regional landscape character,” Lenhart asserts.
Furthermore, a lot of homeowners are realizing the benefits of having a useful front yard that facilitates socializing with neighbors and hosting parties.
According to Lenhart, “people are more willing to embrace alternatives to traditional lawns,” which might be an advantage of the English cottage garden from a curb appeal perspective.
Curb Appeal with Landscape Design
According to a few survey results and a 2018 Virginia Cooperative Extension paper, investing in landscaping significantly raises property value. Lenhart also notes that the American Society of Landscape Architects previously estimated that resale value increased between 10 and 20% following landscape improvements.
“The caveat is that landscape improvements add value to a house if they are perceived to be kempt and intentional or well-maintained,” Lenhart explains. “If the neighborhood perceives a landscape to be messy or poorly maintained, that often rankles the neighbors.”
Although Lenhart acknowledges that there is some risk associated with a popular landscaping option such as an English cottage garden, he believes the secret is to execute it in a manner that makes sense for your area and community. Given that during the greener months even a regular lawn may need to be mowed once a week, a well-planned cottage garden may provide more use with less upkeep, as well as being more environmentally friendly.
“A properly maintained cottage garden is going to look beautiful and would add to the value of your home,” he states.
Thus, maintaining that garden is essential to having a charming (and buyer-friendly) cottage garden. It’s up to you how you do it, but our experts have some advice.
Understanding an English Cottage Garden’s Ordered Chaos
English cottage gardens are lush and thick, combining two distinct styles.
“English and cottage are kind of tributaries that fall under the same umbrella, but they’re different,” Lenhart explains. “Cottage is sort of the more wild, diverse, unkempt version,” he explains. It would be more official in English. Hedgerows and sharp, vertical evergreen accents are used in English gardens to accentuate certain sections and define spaces.
Fruit trees and fragrant plants were introduced into the original cottage gardens, which Lenhart claims date back to the 1800s, out of need. Fruit served as sustenance, and strong scents concealed the often disagreeable ones in an era when taking a daily shower was unheard of.
English cottage gardens are versatile and forgiving, and they can be replicated in various climes, according to Lenhart. Many have foxgloves, hollyhocks, and delphiniums, while native plants that thrive in the drier western states include sage, yarrow, fleabane, buckwheat, lavender, and Russian sage, according to Yardzen specialists.
Landscape designer Bobbie Schwartz of Ohio-based Bobbie’s Green Thumb characterizes the English cottage garden style as a blend of formality and informality.
“There is an illusion of it being natural looking,” she claims. “The antithesis is something that is very formal.”
According to Schwartz, an increasing number of homeowners are asking for this design for their yards. She owns one herself, on a property in the Cleveland neighborhood of Shaker Heights. She claims that upkeep is minimal once installed. She spends a few hours a week checking in to make sure everything is in order after doing the most of her pruning in the spring, which includes dead heading hydrangeas, trimming back roses, and chopping down stems.
“It can be very high-maintenance, or lower maintenance depending on plant choices,” she explains. However, it’s a blend. It indicates that you own something that will always flourish. The garden will never stay the same.”
Including between a thousand and two thousand distinct types of flowers, shrubs, sedges, groundcover, and grasses, Schwartz maintains a record of the plants in her own yard. Her yard is somewhat shaded, partially dry, and partially damp.
“It’s an inner-city, suburb lot but it’s crammed full of plants,” she continues.
Lenhart states that you should generally aim for a wide variety of various species, textures, and vertical layers. He believes that any kind of seating should be rich with age and that plants should be creeping up over any gravel walkways (thus a cottage garden may be the ideal place for some items from the flea market).
According to Lenhart, “cottage gardens appear as though the plants are in charge.”
Are you prepared to add some order to chaos to improve the curb appeal of your own home? There are a ton of cottage-style garden designs available to you.