Creating Cottage Style Flower Beds

        Almost five years ago, my husband, my five children, and I moved into our current home. I was praying that we would find a home that would be big enough for our big family and would hopefully provide me the opportunity to garden and bask in the sunlight while planting flowers. God knew exactly what we needed and guided us to this house.

       When I looked at this house almost five years ago, I knew it was my dream property. Not because the house was new (it’s a fifty year old ranch style home) but because the land was unbelievable. It sits on an acre and has this gorgeous river that wraps around the side. Who gets to live on a river? And why was I so blessed to be apart of it? Lastly, why would anyone sell this property? 

      The previous owners didn’t care much to garden or landscape, so for me that was great because I like to make things my own and I would have torn out everything anyway. With that comes endless hours of hard physical labor. I no longer needed a gym pass. 

       For the first couple of years, I created flower beds around the large lot! I researched for months on this topic: how to create them, the different styles, and placement. This became my new form of creativity. I tend to be perfectionistic and a bit obsessive and that was the unhealthy direction I was going, haha. 

With the freedom of a blank slate of land, I started creating flowers beds.  I fell in love with the cottage style. It’s free flowing, informal, curvy, and little bit on the wild side. I’m a free spirit and it matched my personality perfectly. 

So with a shovel and a pair of gloves, I started digging. I created curved paths from one end to the other.  The larger the yard, the bigger my flower beds could be. I got a can of spray paint and marked  my lines. I wasn’t patient enough to wait for the grass to die from weed killer, so I used my shovel to cut along my painted lines. I dug up the grass, lifted the chunks and threw each piece into a wheel barrow. I found it fairly easy to dig up the grass because it was spring and everything was moist. Almost five years later and dozens of wheel barrow loads,  I have created numerous flowers beds all over my property. They widen each year, a process that is frightening to my husband. He is concerned that eventually they will overtake all of the grass. Who knows. :)

Tips for making flower beds an easier process:

Come up with a design you like. Keep it flexible.

Decide what style you lean towards. Are you formal and like straight clean lines? Or are you more like me and want more freedom. 

Kill your grass with weed killer before you try to remove it. Make sure you don’t step where you have sprayed or your neighbor will call you big foot because of the dead foot prints all over the lawn.