Happy Vintage Cottage Weekend! I spent all day yesterday in the garden so I wanted to share some updates and my beautiful new Mother’s Day Urn!

This area by the back side door has always been hard to style. I have had a plant stand here previously, but it just took up too much room and all the little pots were too much maintenance. 

It did look very pretty, but I never had much luck with any potted plants on this plant stand and the stand made the area a little crowded when trying to get groceries in the door.

This spring this spot did look gorgeous with all my potted tulips, but I really wanted something that would look good year round. I decided that an urn with an evergreen would be a good choice. 

What do you think? My husband actually picked out the urn with me on Mother’s Day and didn’t  even complain about lugging the two hundred pound concrete urn from Lowes to our house!  (He does not share my obsession with concrete urns because he has to do all the hard work of moving them around!)

The urn is definitely in keeping with more of the elegant English cottage aesthetic I am trying to create in the container gardens area.

I am using lots of pretty plants and ever greens in aged pots and urns, many that will look good year round and don’t require a lot of fussing.

I switched out my pretty spring pansies in this low urn for several colorful heuchera and heucherella (coral bells) that I swiped from other areas of the garden where they weren’t thriving. So far they are loving the part shade area. They are somewhat evergreen in our area, so they will look good through Janurary and perk back up in March.

Just across the sidewalk is my raised cedar bed filled with herbs and edible annuals, with pretty pots and urns underneath. The clover looking plant coming up through the gravel is actually wood sorrel, a pretty herb that pollinators love.  It might look weedy, but I think they are sweet plants so I keep them until they die back in the heat of summer.

These pictures were taken early this morning. I love how the colors pop when it is still slightly shady in this spot. I will share a post with all the details of each plant in my raised bed and some of the pretty container plants soon.

Backyard Changes

The backyard garden is getting a major overhaul! All the plants and shrubs lining the side of the garage where my potting bench is are being shifted out to the center in an extended bed, and a couple of new little borders are being created. There is going to be a deck up against the garage, so all of those plants need a new home. I will miss the garage herbaceous border, but the changes are going to be worth it!

Here is how the center of the bed was looking last year. I kept all of these plants and the structure but added so many more that drought tolerant perennials that I swiped from the side of the garage border.  I am excited to see the new larger center bed fill out!

August Garden Highlights

Here’s a look back at the backyard garden in late summer if you would like some ideas for planning a simple perennial herbaceous border with herbs, and standard drought tolerant perennials like coneflowers, black eyed Susan, autumn sedum and Russian sage.

The vintage cottage (and garden) weekend fun continues over at Common Ground! Obviously Debra and I are both all about gardening right now. We are always thinking alike, so much that we didn’t coordinate our blog titles today and came up with the same “garden update”  title! Now let’s head over to Debra’s to check out her Garden Update and Lovely Flower Pot Wreath!

Have a beautiful vintage cottage weekend!

Amber