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Cathy harvests a bounty of onions from a vegetable garden that also welcomes flowers.
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If you ask Felder Rushing of Jackson, Mississippi, to define the term "cottage garden," he'll tell you it's a place that "has every kind of plant and thing, including the kitchen sink." But if he sees Cathy Umphrey's garden in Annapolis, he'll have to cut her some slack. Hers doesn't have a sink. But it does have vegetables, flower borders, fruit trees, a fishpond, a flagstone patio, a lawn, benches, and painted chairs--all in a 40- x 85-foot backyard. She and her husband, Stewart, did the work themselves. Color and Texture
For her part, Cathy defines a cottage garden as "one that moves with the seasons. There's something happening all the time." Indeed, that's the case here. Her garden emphasizes leaf textures, foliage colors, and plant combinations. "It's important to keep it ever changing and varied without a lot of expense and labor," she explains. "But to avoid gaps, you need good foliage plants." She suggests combining different leaf shapes and sizes--lacy with coarse, big with little, or strappy with round. An excellent example is Cathy's quintet of 'Francee' hosta, 'Brilliant' sedum, yellow corydalis (Corydalis lutea), Sedum cauticolum, and bluestar (Amsonia sp.).
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above, left: Shades of pink echo in this combination of Japanese painted fern, dwarf pink hydrangea, and bellflower.; above, center: So many plants in so little space. This planting of 'Bengal Tiger' cannas, Shasta daisies, larkspurs, variegated plectranthus, white yarrow, and variegated iris shows what cottage gardening is all about.; above, right: Yellow corydalis seeds itself in the cracks between the concrete edging.
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Once you master texture, it's time to tackle color. "I like a diversity of plants with a unifying tone," she says. "If one plant is in a strong hue, another can pick up on that in a subtle way." Garden designers call this technique "color echo." You'll find it here in a shady corner where a dwarf pink hydrangea, Japanese painted ferns, and nodding bellflowers (Campanula sp.) display various hues of pink.
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A painted chair picks up the color of larkspurs, while towering yellow lilies shine like beacons.
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Cathy's zest for color extends beyond flowers and foliage to gaudily painted chairs. And that's not all. "I read about how artist Robert Dash painted outdoor woodwork to keep pace with the seasonal color in his garden, and I loved the idea," she recalls. "Then one day, our clothes dryer broke down, and as I hung our laundry in the garden, I started arranging the brightly colored T-shirts on the line to coordinate with the flowers." Choosing the shirts to match the flowers…sink or no sink, that's got to be a cottage garden.
