Landscaping the Cottage (phase 1)

Last week I put up the first shiplap wall inside The Old Tree Cottage. Now I’ve pivoted to landscaping the front of the cottage, which caused my son to ask why I didn’t finish one project before moving on to another. (A fair question!) It all comes down to organization, weather, and me.

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Project jumping

I “may” be known to bounce around from project to project. But in this case, I had a good reason. My goal is to landscape the cottage using as many plants from my yard as possible. I realized I needed to move my plants sooner than later. But before I could do that, I had to do some landscaping at the front of the cottage to make the garden beds! So instead of calling it project jumping, let’s just say I’m flexible with a timetable, shall we?

Planning the landscaping for the cottage

I usually have a plan in my head of what I want to do regarding landscaping, but I was drawing a blank for the front of the cottage! So I did what I do best; I picked up my garden edger and started creating the garden shape as I dug. I bought a climbing rose that will eventually cover the wire fence between the cottage and the back of my garage. It was a much cheaper option than replacing the fence!

Making the gardens

Now that I had the shapes for the garden and the path, I needed to dig up the sod. And when I say sod, I mean digging up the well-established weeds with bits of grass and moss. I don’t mind sitting and shaking the dirt off the clumps of sod because I like to reuse as much as possible.

I believe in garden fairies.

In my shiplap post, I talked about shiplap fairies. And if they are real, there must also be garden fairies. Why? Because my neighbour messaged me to say she was taking out one of her gardens and would I like some plants. Eeee! That would be a great big yes, please! I was so excited I didn’t even ask what kind!

Phase one is almost done!

This phase could have taken much longer than it did. Design-as-you-go isn’t for everyone, but it worked for me in this case! I still need crushed gravel for the path and mulch for the garden. Now that I have my plants transplanted, it’s back to dividing my time between the shiplap and making rustic decor tutorials and looking after my granddaughters.

Thanks for stopping by and checking up on the progress of My DIY Cottage.