If cottage gardens are one of your favourite planting schemes (they’re certainly mine!), but you’re short on border space, you can still achieve the look on a patio. You’ll just need a list of the best cottage garden plants for pots to get you started.
Actually, many of the best cottage garden plants thrive in containers – it’s just a case of choosing the right types, whether you’re after the daisy-like flowers Erigeron or the delphinium varieties that thrive in pots (yes, really!).
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What you’ll need
Crocus
Siena Ribbed Italian Terracotta Pot
Erigeron looks beautiful in these terracotta pots.
Miracle-Gro
Peat-Free Premium All Purpose Compost
Fill your pots with high-quality, peat-free compost.
Charles Taylor Garden Furniture
Country Extra Large Wooden Trough Planter
If you’ve got room for a trough, this rustic planter is ideal.
1. Bellflowers
Bellflowers (Campanula carpatica) always catch my eye at the garden centre (but you can also order them online, like Campanula carpatica ‘Blaue Clips’ from Crocus). Firstly, they’re blue and purple (my favourite colour) – but they’re also just so delicate and pretty.
Besides being a beautiful flowering groundcover plant, bellflowers are one of the best cottage garden plants for pots – they look beautiful spilling over the edges of a container or hanging basket.
‘Campanula carpatica is a personal favourite and another bullet-proof hardy perennial, completely covered in rich-blue little bell-shaped flowers for a lengthy period,’ agrees Pim Dickson, senior horticultural content manager at Fothergill’s. ‘For the rest of the year and throughout the winter, its lovely cascading carpet of small leaves still looks amazing!’
Where to buy bellflowers:
2. Dicentra
I think Dicentra ‘Bleeding Hearts’ is one of the most whimsical cottage garden plants (you can order bleeding heart plants from Crocus), with its heart-shaped flowers on arching stems.
Dicentra is also one of the best cottage garden plants for shade, thriving under trees and in garden borders. It’s a perfect example of cottage garden plants that thrive in pots, but you’ll need to keep them out of direct sunlight.
Where to buy Dianthus:
3. Erigeron
Erigeron deserves a place on any list of the best cottage garden plants for pots, because it’ll fill a container with daisy-like flowers at speed. It’s known more commonly as Mexican fleabane, and it’s perfect for adding interest to a cottage garden planting scheme.
Borde Hill’s head gardener, Mark Bobin, recommends Erigeron karvinskianus ‘Profusion’ (which you can buy from YouGarden) for pots for a full and varied display alongside other cottage garden plants.
Where to buy Erigeron:
4. Dwarf delphiniums
Delphiniums might traditionally be a garden border plant, but ideally, a cottage garden scheme needs height – and dwarf varieties, which are often suited to pot-growing, can provide just that.
‘Add compact delphiniums for height,’ advises Jake Fisher, gardener at Burrow Farm Estate. ‘Use weathered terracotta or mismatched pots, and let plants intermingle to create that effortless, countryside feel in miniature.’
Personally, I love these classic Italian terracotta pots from Crocus.
Where to buy dwarf delphiniums:
5. Lady’s mantle
Alchemilla mollis, known commonly as lady’s mantle, is a popular groundcover plant that keeps weeds at bay, but it’s also a brilliant cottage garden plant for pots.
‘This hardy perennial, slug-proof, shade-tolerant, and will grow almost anywhere!’ says Pim. ‘It has interesting acid-green flowers but is mostly grown for its beautiful wavy-edged leaves, which hold raindrops and make them shimmer like diamonds.’
Where to buy lady’s mantle:
6. Aquilegia
Aquilegia, known as granny’s bonnet, is another fantastic cottage garden plant to grow in pots. It usually bursts into bloom in early summer, and though it’s a short-lived perennial, it’ll self-seed for future plants.
‘This plant is shade-tolerant with attractive leaves that tend to form airy, rounded plants, with the flowers rising tall above,’ says Pim.
It’s a perennial that you can grow from seed yourself, too, and the seeds are readily available to order online, like these Fothergill’s Aquilegia ‘Mix’ seeds from Amazon.
Where to buy Aquilegia:
This list of the best cottage garden plants for pots is by no means extensive, but it’s a brilliant starting point if you’re hoping to start this whimsical, romantic planting scheme on a patio.
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