Turning a square piece of grass into my dream cottage garden 🌱

From the beginning to now, here is a look back at my journey to creating my dream cottage garden. I have a small semi-detached garden, and it began as a simple square piece of grass. Over the years, I have layered on and created my dream space. It is always evolving and changing, and I am excited to plan for the season ahead. My growing x zone is 8, and I am on the east coast of Ireland.

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Welcome to this video and January is an amazing time if you want to plan in the garden so the goal of this video we are going back into the archives I want to show you my Cottage Garden Journey from the beginning to what it’s looking like now well currently in Winter it ain’t

Looking so fresh but I suppose that’s the beauty of gardening everything dies back and you get a brand new canvas in springtime unlike room makeovers there is no instant gratification well sometimes if you tidy up a corner there is but your garden is always changing of

W just like you as a person so let’s go back to the beginning and show you where I began so I live in a semi detached Bungalow I don’t live in a quaint tached roof Irish Cottage however the style of gardening that I love is a romantic Whimsical Cottage Garden style of

Gardening so lots of flaring perennials roses in the front one big mistake I’ve made is not having enough structure but I’ll get back to that my garden was just a square Rec rectangle patch of grass with a shed at the end the shed was here

When I moved in I do get questions about people asking me where I got it from but it was here when I arrived I’m in my home 10 years but I actually only did proper work in the garden around about the pandemic time my gardening up until

That point was cutting the grass and trying to keep some pots alive I knew nothing about soil watering but I had so much joy when I was in the garden and I loved cutting the grass it was my thing after work can of cider cut the grass

Gave me joy I loved being outside during the pandemic I Was Made redundant so I had more time in the garden because I started working from home and that’s when I decided to actually put some bones into the garden so tidied up the shed I invested and I bought a

Greenhouse the greenhouse that I bought is from outdoor living. I get some questions about that as well it’s 8T by 8T and I have a 10t x 10t concrete free base all of the jobs in the garden are pretty much done by myself assembling raised beds things like that I did get

My brothers to help me out with a gravel patch down the end and I say a handful of times I’ve had my friend dad help me I do think I need to get help because sometimes especially when you’re busy and work it can get overwhelming and I’ve definitely had points in the past

Year where I have felt overwhelmed in the garden however it gives the joy it gives me out weighs the overwhelming to eat into the square patch of grass I built four raised beds they are 4 foot no they are 8ot by 4T and I do grow some

Vegetables but the joy for me is growing cut flowers and that is something that I absolutely loved last year making my own little bouquets watching them grow growing them from seedlings I just love the color and something that I’ve been trying to do is have color throughout

The season so lot lots of daffodils tulips even snow drops and crocus in the grass in springtime and then planting stuff to get me into Early Autumn so even up to October I had lots of daes um lots of sweet peas lots of annuals that will keep me going until Autumn time so

The garden only looks a bit crap from November December January and then it starts to kick off again let’s talk about growing zones I didn’t know growing zones were a thing until the comment section when people would ask me hey what’s your growing zone it seems

Very mild there so Ireland I had a Google it’s either zone eight or zone 9 although Ireland is small there is variations in the weather we are in Ireland so on the west coast of Ireland it gets more rainfall obviously that good old Atlantic Breeze belts the pads

Out but anytime there’s a storm it’s always the West Coast that gets whacked over I’m on the East Coast bit more sheltered and there’s not as much rainfall compared to the west and obviously you’ve got north south and variations in between so where I am I

Rarely ever get any snow if I do get snow it’s a dusting for a day or every couple of years we seem to get a bad one that might last a couple of days and stops the buses from running because Ireland comes to a standstill when

There’s a bit of severe weather but that means if you are a regular viewer and you see me out gardening in March even late February the temperatures range anywhere from 0 to 10 March can be quite a mild month it depends obviously with the weather changing I know last year

There was some nice days but then April was quite cold and there was lots of heavy rain so Irish people we love to talk about the weather cuz you can literally have five seasons in the one day but one thing I will say is I think it’s a great climate for growing we

Always have lovely Lush grass and there’s never too harsh of a frost so you can kind of grow where I am anyway obviously if you’re up in the mountains or if you’re exposed in wind you’re going to have harsher conditions but I feel like I’m tucked away in this lovely

Growing climate in my back Garden one of my biggest learns has also been about the microclimate that is in your own garden and even when you look at your neighbor’s Garden there might be plants growing better in theirs than it is in yours so I kind of gardened backwards I

Didn’t know anything about the different soils and my lighting conditions and also I have areas in my garden that get way more weight compared to more sheltered areas so I think Garden taught me not to compare to my neighbor’s garden and to just work with what I have so there might be a

Plant that grows really well in the front where it’s sunnier and drier so the likes of lavender Rosemary herbs and I had those poor Lads in a sheltered more damp Spa in the back Garden so I think my biggest learn is you need to plant plants where they want to go not

Where you want them to go go but the good thing is there’s pretty much a plant for every place so my best tip to any beginner Gardener maybe you enjoy being out and about but you want to layer on to your garden maybe there’s a

Corner you want to dig up turn it into a flower bed or a meadow one thing I love to do is just get a piece of paper and draw out some squiggles see where you want to plant something draw out your flower beds and then identify the

Lighting so you’ll have to do this ideally throughout the course of the year winter is a good time because you’re going to see where it’s really really dark in Winter and make a note of that and then come springtime when the clocks change obviously the lighting

Levels will change as well so that area may become brighter so you want to identify if a spot is Shady semi-shady full sun ideally when they say full sun I believe it’s more than 6 hours a day for full sun but you can double check

That also keep an eye out for the wind when there is a storm or it’s particularly windy is that a bit of a wind trap the right hand side of my garden and where the laneway is gets very windy it’s like a tunnel of wind

And then also that is not a sound effect in the background a shower as I’m doing this voice over there is rain pelting off the window so it’s not a sound effect I have randomly just added in but something important that I never really did until I realized the plants were not

Happy in the locations they were gr was test oil so you can have acidic there’s different PHS you can get a soil testing key and then you have the texture you can have a heavy clay soil or you can have a sandy soil so that’ll determine

The type of plant that will be happy in that soil so for example if you have really sandy gritty soil and it’s in a sunny position then your Mediterranean plants are going to love that you could do almost like a Rockery theme then if you have like a damper area so like the

Hydranges they love water hydranges are a great plant in a Cottage Garden for structure as well so they have a beautiful leaf on them and then you get this stunning flour and they pretty much flour all throughout the summer time if you have somewhere where it gets a bit

More water you’ve got a damper spot in the garden they would like it there and also if you have areas that are full of heavy clay soil you can condition this by mulching it so I mulch every Springtime I use a fine bar mulch I’m actually really excited to order my bag

For this year it makes you know what it gives you a clean canvas so you can mulch throughout the a you can use grass clipping you can leave leaves um I like to use a fine bra and I do it around February March time and this just gives

The soil it gives it a nice clean look but that breaks down into your existing soil and as you’re digging and planting it will condition and loosen up the soil so if you do have heavy clay you can mulch it every year but if you don’t

Want to follow the rules like me and learn the hard way you can just pick a plant that you like roughly look at the pot the pot tells you everything whether it like sun half soon full sun and then you can just stick it in but try to just

Bear that in mind because then you’re not going to have to guarden backwards like me I sometimes have to move around plants because I get the like a common thing I did in the beginning was I would not check the height of something so I would have a really tall plant in front

Of a tiny short plant so little things like that but I have to say you learn from those mistakes than me telling you I can tell you what to do what actually you learn when you get your hands dirty you see walk grows and at the end of the

Day planting is a bit guilt-free if a plant’s not happy try and get it before it dies and move it and then make it happy and if it dies it will just compost back into the soil which is why I try and grow things from seed because

Then it’s more cost effective if you plan on killing some plants instead of going to the garden center and spending a fortune my next mistake is not planning structure and by structure I mean your shrubs small trees your girl is a hearty perennial flower kind of

Person I just want my garden to look like a scene from The Secret Garden full of flowering plants however what I’ve learned is that you need to have some balance and you need to have a mix of some evergreen shrubs and it’s also so good for bugs insects nature this year

One of the things I’ve noticed is year on year I have increased the amount of bugs in my garden so my garden used to be quite just sterile as in it was just grass I had you know the trees from the other side of the wall so I always had

Wild birds visi in the garden but since planting more and layering onto the garden I have so many bugs and I don’t use any pesticides I do nothing last year I did have some aphids on my daes and I left them now I was chatting to

Someone at the or just flower show the Chelsea one about they were giving talks you know about you know natural pesticides and stuff they did said if you had apads on your dailies to wipe them off with a tissue and squash them as you’re doing it cuz apparently it

Gives off a pheromone that will attract ladybugs now I don’t have the heart to do that so I just leave everything I do if I find Vine weavil I did have I did find some in a pot um they got through I throw them over the wall I I’m not sure

What you’re supposed to do with them but I just threw them over to the wall and that is a wild public space above the wall not my neighbors if I notice any disease on a plant I will cut it off and then burn that foliage and clean and

Disinfect the tools that I have used but if I see lots of bugs I generally leave them cuz if you leave them long enough nature will come up with a solution so this year I had way more ladybugs VIs visit the garden I had loads of hoverflies as well I had Birds nesting

So the robins had a nest um I didn’t see the actual Nest but I saw the chicks the chicks were dotting around if you follow me on Instagram you would have seen me share sharing the chicks the Blackbird also had a brw as well and there’s always pigeons trying to do naughty

Things on the fence in the garden so that’s the one thing that gives me joy now I went off on a tangent there I think I was talking about shrubs so the green thumb is is in my bloodline you could say so my dad Lord Rim was an

Amazing Gardener but he was more on the shrub end he loved having evergreen shrubs and trees he loved trimming and shaping and pruning shrubs in the garden and the garden was always tidy and Evergreen I don’t remember it being full of like perennial flowers there was the

Odd thing there was a couple of roses a few flowering shrubs whereas I’m on the opposite end I just wanted flowers flowers flowers one after the other I feel like if he was alive he would say girl I think you need a few shrubs so I have started to dot in some more

Structural plants um so the likes of the shrubby hydranges I have I did move an Annabelle I think she’s starting to come back oh I janger Annabelle my regular viewers will know the hustle she has given me I also planted a small variety of a magnolia tree I have an apple tree

In a pot um I have a tree in the front that I planted actually not too long after I moved in it’s about 8 n years old and I have two trees in pots that I need to find a home for that I got for

Free from tree week and I also have an olive tree as well so even though I have a small garden I do try and have some trees even some little ons if you are trying to get more Wildlife into your garden shrubs and trees that’s how

You’ll get all the birds staying in one thing I I didn’t realize years ago was I would feed the birds but because my grass was this just open rectangle space the birds prefer when they have places that they can shelter and dirt around so they can fly in they can like get food

Or whatever but now that I have more areas in the garden where they can hide and run around and dir about I’ve noticed that I have way more wildlife in the garden this year and bugs now speaking of bugs I’m really excited because I’ve signed up to do a course

It’s only a six week one I starts in February so I have signed up I’ve paid my deposit I’m waiting to hear back from them so I really hope it goes ahead because it’s something that I’m really interested in and I want to learn more I’ll wait until February and I will fill

You in and let you know how I’m getting on so this has been my journey for the past I suppose two to three years in the garden every year I layer on I learn something new something has to be prepared possibly change plants leave me AKA die and new ones come in seedlings

Are sewn and a new chapter in the garden begins something I will say is your garden I don’t think your garden should ever be done yes you can get landscapers in to get the bones in but when it comes to your plants and your tastes changing and different things happening in the

Garden The Joy really is in their Journey as they say I’m really looking forward to a new year in the garden and you know what it has been so nice looking back so if you have photos on your phone because if you were to look out my window right now it is the

Grayest rainiest Irish day I definitely get a lower mood in the winter time so it has been an absolute joy to look back at my achievements in the garden especially this year scen like I added more to the C flower garden there was more color more bugs every year it’s

Like more life gets added to the Garden in springtime I will start back with my garden videos I normally upload these on a Sunday I do have a playlist from this year if you want to watch them I think there’s over a 100 odd videos on The

Cottage Garden playlist so if you want you can catch up on them please hit subscribe if you enjoyed it if you enjoyed this video and for my regular viewers thank you for checking in weekly I know that there is some people who just watch for the garden video it’s on

Almost like a community in itself and like I do say I will show you how I Garden I’m never going to tell you how to garden I can just share my journey and hopefully you find it inspirational I’m not going to be as informative as the other Garden videos on YouTube or if

You watch Gardener world I’m not going to give you a load of information I just share my journey and I love that you guys Garden along with me too let’s have the chats in the comments section I’d love to know what was your garden win or lesson from this year and what’s

Something you want to do going forward in your garden thanks for watching I’ll see you in the next One