What is a “cottage garden” and what is a ” potager garden”?  What is the main difference between them?  Why would I want either of them here at Alba Ranch?

I have been working on this “cottage garden” here for several years but have been unable to get the right vibe.  There is a feeling or energy that I want to create and it is still lacking.  I may have figured out why I am not getting the right “vibe”.  It comes down to the definition of a cottage garden Vs a potager garden.  Prior to this week, I had not heard the term potager garden or even known what it was.

Now you may be thinking “what the heck is a Potager garden?” I know that was what I thought when I first heard that phrase.  Let me tell you about the two styles.

A cottage garden is many times thought of as an English Garden style.  Whimsical, informal, and romantic…almost a fairy garden.  The path winds, the rows aren’t straight, everything is kinda squashed in close so it all works together but at any given moment looks like it might spill over the border edge out into the path.  It can have vegetables in it but may not.  It is full of perennials, herbs, annuals and flowers.  The design and focus are generally to create a visually pleasing place. A location or destiny if you like.

A potager garden is more a French style of cottage garden.  It’s focus and design is more for growing edible plants for the table.  A practical and focused intent for the garden.  Soup pot to table sort of kitchen garden.  Traditionally a person went out and harvested whatever was ready at that time and that was the meal for the day…in the soup or stew pot.  

A cottage garden is informal and relaxed. A potager garden is more formal with well defined paths, rows and a symmetrical layout many times using raised beds. There may be some ornamental plants included for an enhanced visual appeal because one does need a few flowers for the table, right? The potager garden has an emphasis on practical and functional growing of food.  The cottage garden can focus on food growing, but the visual appealing place is still the main focus.

My lavender and herb rock garden is pretty large.  The moon garden section has a more cottage feel about it.  The Stone Circle Area is built for meandering and it’s visual appeal.  But the other three quarters is very rigid rows laid out in symmetrical beds that are all exact same size. What is planted in it is different but currently there isn’t very much vertical going on.  It was easier to build using the tractor and forms for the rows but I am starting to regret that.

I unknowingly started a Potager Style in the main part of terrace 1 and all of terrace 3.  I need to change that.  I think the Lavender Stone Circle Terrace Garden (whew that is a mouthful for a name) should be mostly a Cottage Garden style.  But the lavender rows and cut flower rows in particular will have a more Potager feel to them.  I can incorporate some vegetables, greens and fruit trees into some of those areas to loosen up it’s style a bit and add in some vertical designs.

I found a block at my local Home Depot that uses 2 x 6 boards and rebar to build it.  I can go up to 2 feet high very comfortably but am brave enough to try higher possibly.  I have a few locations that I want to build some taller raised beds. The 5.5 inch blocks stack on each other at the corners with one 2 x 6 board dropped into each block.  Once your stack and boards are assembled you pound a half inch rebar through the center hole of the stack of block to anchor them.  This raised bed is more complicated than the Dragonfly Beds but allows me a much taller bed.  

The soil in the lavender garden is mostly sand.  That works for lavender and many wildflowers, but most everything else needs a better quality of soil.  I need a raised bed for that which can get some decent height.  The Dragonfly Beds worked perfectly in the other area because they were laid on top of 2 feet of bark that had composted in place for three years.

Cottage gardens have a lot of vertical elements in them.  All my vertical parts are at the outside edges with the entire inner garden being mostly flat.  Other than the herbs and edible flowers, I do have numerous Nan King Cherry bushes, grape vines and Service berries planted.  That will give the fruit element.  But again, that is along the top fence and terrace four up at the top.  It still feels very much “the edge” of the garden.  I do not have any greens, vegetables or root crops in the Lavender garden as of yet.  

I do not have any vertical trellises or archways for vines or trailing plants to grow either.  That is a new focus for this year.  Incorporating more vertical in the garden with some trellises and archways.  I got the cattle panels to use to make a few trellis tunnels for the garden.  I thought we might start with a gourd tunnel.  I have wanted to plant louffa gourds for a while. Birdhouse and ladle gourds are another style of gourd that I want to try to grow. And I want to eventually build a Living Willow gazebo of sorts similar to this one. I just adore this.

I have 3 main areas to plant that are currently still covered in black plastic to protect the soil and suppress weeds.  These three areas HAD plans for straight rows of lavender but I am giving some thought to how I can change that so it isn’t so rigid. I need more informal and less rigid plantings.  Straight and rigid is super easy to build with the tractor, but it’s giving a vibe I do not want.  It will be more work to build it partially by hand, but the building of it is done one time in theory with the maintenance afterwards all the time.

Of the other areas that are mostly planted, I still have a lot of “holes” to fill in which is on the list for this year.  I can get more dense plantings in and as the plants mature, it will have that more abundant spilling out over the edges feel.  

The new Dragonfly bed area is probably going to be more of a potager garden.  The paths are defined as long as I can keep the raspberries at bay.  The beds are raised and all symmetrical.  It is a formal layout of the beds.  Doing square foot gardening will even have the plants organized and formal inside the beds.  The dragonfly garden is also closer to the house, closer to a steady water source for vegetable growing and hooked right to the orchard garden.  The orchard and dragonfly gardens are essentially my fruit and veg garden.  

The original garden that I started with over 12 years ago, has morphed into a dedicated herb garden.  Mostly because the herbs have exploded and taken over and because I got tired of fighting the cats and deer.  Neither like a strong smelling herb very much so they left the herbs alone.  The herbs exploded and filled the space and I didn’t fight it.  The “kitchen herb” garden is right outside the orchard garden so again, close to water and the house.

The kitchen herb, orchard, and dragonfly gardens all work together as a functional food producing area.  I do have a little bit of the whimsical and informal going on in the orchard part, but the other two are laid out very symmetrical with defined paths.  The orchard garden has more of the “vibe” I am going for but I think a lot of that is the vertical of the fruit trees.  

Maybe I need to plant a fruit tree or six in the Lavender Garden area?  I can build in some seating areas around any new trees planted in the Lavender Garden.  If I build a raised box bed out of the blocks to get a raised bed 2 feet deep, I could plant a fruit tree in it.  And the four sides of that raised bed can be capped with a wide board to make a 4 sided bench for seating under that fruit tree.   Hmmmm……

We did plant the Sali Rainbow Garden last year at the far bottom near the forest.  That is the willow garden.  It will be vertical and more informal but for now those trees are tiny at about a foot high.  

Maybe I need to put in a lovely plum tree and a crabapple in the Lavender Garden. They don’t necessarily have to be big trees and shouldn’t cast too much shade.  I can grow things like lettuces and green under the trees because in the hot sun and heat of summer, those greens will bolt if they don’t have shade.  I have a lot of benches placed and large rocks to sit on.  But currently those are all in full sun.  I need some shade in a few areas that aren’t just at the edges.  Maybe a nice Victoria Plum tree. 

Well….I jumped ahead and ordered 6 new fruit trees that are for the Lavender Gardens.  Those 6 trees will be here in May for planting.  That’s new and unplanned for this year. I added 3 crabapples and 3 new plums. Two of the crabapples have both russet leaves, dark pink blossoms, and red apples that have RED flesh!! The Hansen’s Red Fleshed Crabapple. I can make pink jelly and pink apple sauce!

I am looking forward to the plums. Two are a sweet plum for eating more like a Victoria Plum. Jubilee is an early ripening plum also as an added bonus. Most of my others are of the cooking style and ripen late all at once. I also have a sugar plum coming. It is an improved variety of a drying prune. A very sweet plum with a higher sugar content than most plums. I don’t know if it will ever make it to dried. I might eat them all right off the tree. An additional good thing is that these trees and the location that I want to plant them in is close enough to the original orchard to create a “line of sight” for my pollinators. It brings the two together and connects them. It also connects them visually and makes it feel more like one garden with different styles in various parts. I have decided I will have both styles. I mean, really why should I have to choose?