Cottage garden and more for my mother

Stheno

So as regulars will know after many years I've started gardening again and my mum got wind of it when I sent her a few photos.

She's now said she'd love an easy to care for and colourful garden so I said I'd have a go.

The main garden is about 30x30 feet and she has two 6x6 feet patches outside her front door with a path to the garden.

The aim is to spend this year prepping for next year.

For the 6x6 patches I was thinking a couple of japanese maples with some grasses then bulbs like snowdrops and narcissism

The main garden is mostly South West facing and currently has a few lavender and some bedding plants. I was thinking of creating a six foot wide l shaped bed and planting lupins, hollyhocks, irises, lillies and dahlia, a peony, camellia and other plants along with what is there.

The garden needs to be one that she can do minor stuff in but all other maintenance will be done by me and my siblings and her one demand is that it be colourful.

Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated

looksee

Japanese maples are lovely but do need a bit of shelter. If they are in any sort of wind tunnel or breezy spot they will not do well. They are woodland trees. If they have a hedge or a wall behind them they should be ok.

As to the others, lots of lovely colours. Hollyhocks are favourite snack food for slugs and snails, you will be lucky to get them going. Foxgloves might give a similar-ish show but be less munched. Poppies, Oriental Poppies are good for colour and will continue on indefinitely. Also campanula - the small low growing one and the taller ones (aka Canterbury Bells). Snapdragons are great, they will usually come back for a few years and very colourful. And a small floribunda rose would be nice.

macraignil

Sounds like lots of good colour in the summer but not a whole lot in the winter. Maybe it might be worth adding something with bright coloured stems in winter like red stemmed dogwood or plants with good foliage colour like pittosporum , variegated euonymus or hebe, or even something that flowers in winter like viburnum tinus. I also have found Japanese acer are a bit subject to wind damage but are well worth growing if you have some where with a bit of shelter.

Stheno

looksee wrote: »

Japanese maples are lovely but do need a bit of shelter. If they are in any sort of wind tunnel or breezy spot they will not do well. They are woodland trees. If they have a hedge or a wall behind them they should be ok.

As to the others, lots of lovely colours. Hollyhocks are favourite snack food for slugs and snails, you will be lucky to get them going. Foxgloves might give a similar-ish show but be less munched. Poppies, Oriental Poppies are good for colour and will continue on indefinitely. Also campanula - the small low growing one and the taller ones (aka Canterbury Bells). Snapdragons are great, they will usually come back for a few years and very colourful. And a small floribunda rose would be nice.

The maples will be literally outside her door and have plenty of shelter her house in unusual in that her front door is the back door so no worries there.

I'll include foxgloves and snapdragons not sure about a rose. Was thinking of dogwood for early colour and salvia for height .