CARMEL’S COTTAGE GARDENS
A cottage garden needs a cottage. Try creating the feel of a cottage garden on a large suburban plot with a McMansion and it fails.
It is a distinct style incorporating informal design and dense plantings,
usually enclosed and often with a rose or vine covered gate and arbor.
Hardly what my home-owners association in Kansas City has mandated.
But on the small lots in Carmel-by-the Sea, the conditions are perfect.
Tiny front gardens thrive behind fences
or hedges of privet and boxwood.
Stone or stucco walls enclose others.
And other times flowers billow right out to the street.
How can we create sweet gardens like these. Let me try to walk you through some of the steps I take when designing gardens.
Step 1.
Create a sense of enclosure for your garden. In Carmel this is most often done with a combination of a fence and hedging plants.
Step 2.
Add a gate
and perhaps an arbor.
Let this opening create “peeks” into the garden . This gate just makes me want to step up and get a closer look.
Think about some baskets or planted pots to make it even more inviting.
Step 3.
Develop meandering pathwork. The path adds stucture, character and allows you to walk around and care for the plants.
These gardeners use pavers
Stepping stones
Once upon a time..Tales from Carmel by the Sea 
Thanks for posting this Linda! I love the gardens at the cottages. The fences and gates give so much character to the yard- I’d love my front yard to look like this!!
Thank you for this lovely tutorial. Your posts give me such a lift. I love each and every one of them:)
Happy days,
Betty
Lovely. We in Carmel are so proud of our gardens and Thank our lucky stars we have freedom to plant as we like and not follow homeowners assoc rules. No garden is more beauitful then a Carmel English cottage garden.
Like encountering an oasis rising from the desert floor, your lovely post lifted my spirits and sustained my belief that someday I will have a beautiful English garden in Carmel.
Most of my garden ideas have come from my walks around Carmel. I love your garden choices. Just wonderful!
Sincerely,
Miranda
SF Bay Area
These are real fantasy gardens (and cottages!) for me. The climate must be ideal. Harder to achieve where I am. I love an English cottage garden.
All I can say is BEAUTIFUL! This is about as close as I’ll ever get to Carmel. Maybe that’s just as well, I wouldn’t want to leave.
Lovely examples & great advice. Thank you!
Just when I thought living in Carmel couldn’t get any better, I ran across your blog – wow – keep it up, you definitely have me hooked. Thanks for the great ideas about how to create a cottage garden.
So gorgeous…I am trying to create a “carmelish” garden in my own backyard! Thanks for the inspiration …I so love Carmel!
Miss Bloomers
Brilliant post brimming with ideas!
My husband,gene, myself, and my parents visited Carmel 2 years ago and that trip was so wonderful & special to all of us! Gene and myself will be returning there in 2 years for our 40th anniversary! So excited! We enjoy you writings more than you know as they transport us back to the best trip of our lives!! Thanks again! Sheryl
I have a cottage in Illinois, but sadly the prairie climate is not friendly to traditional English cottage plants. I try every year, though!
We stumbled over here coming from a different website and thought I
may as well check things out. I like what I see so i am just following you.
Look forward to going over your web page yet again.
Just read once upon a time…carmel by the sea.. wondering how I find your next article from that week?