TIPS Cottage Garden Before and After

Looking for ideas for your cottage garden beds? Here are some of my favorite plants and ideas for this cottage garden before and after.

A backyard with white fencing, a covered patio area, and a shed in the background. Large green trees and a concrete path are visible, with some garden beds along the fence.

In the backyard under the overhanging leaves of the old oak tree is a little bit of forgotten yard.

We put this fence in years ago and always meant to go back and add flower beds in front of it. It’s an area that measures approximately 10 feet deep and 30 feet wide and it’s the perfect space for flowers and evergreen bushes, and plants that attract butterflies. Oh, the plans we had for this part of the yard.

And then?

Life happened and we forgot about it.

Even the grass kind of forgot about it.

I mean, I’d give it a wave when I walked from the house to the back of the yard or smiled at it when we walked to hang out in the pergola, but for the most part? It was ignored.

Until now.

We laid out the beds with edging and tilled the soil and amended the soil, and even added new soil in spots. Then we added 1/2 pallet of Zoysia sod to the front of the beds next to the driveway and came up with a plan.

And now?

A plan that looks like this.

Cottage Garden Before and After

A garden plant map shows curving beds with labeled circles representing plant types, sizes, and quantities, including BB Heritage, Miss Lemon Abelia, Butterfly Candy Lil’, Agapanthus, Daylily, and Veronica in Pink.

The Design Plan

Here’s what the plan looks like.

I’ll talk through the specific plants here, but if you want to skip right to the after—scroll down for the garden that we planted with these amazing plants from The Southern Living Plant Collection.

(total aside here: I love, love, LOVE the quality of the plants from the Southern Living Plant collection. This is the same plant company that we used for the beds in the front yard and the plants have held up so well and are all blooming and thriving again this year).

I put links to each of the plants so you could see more about them.

We started by adding some foundation plants that we transplanted from other parts of the yard (you can see them there in the green dots).

I love, love, LOVED the Agapanthus that we planted in the front yard (If you only added one plant to your garden this year, it would be this one for me).

  • Ever White™ Agapanthus – Blooms very early and reblooms with multiple spikes of brilliant white flowers that attract birds and butterflies. Fast-growing Ever White is tough and drought tolerant, taking partial sun. With crisp white flowers in the summer through the fall, Ever White™ makes an attractive border plant, accent, or mass planting.  It’s also beautiful in cut flower arrangements. It’s hardy in USDA Zones 8a-11b and matures to 18-20″ high by 12-18″ wide.
  • Ever Sapphire™ Agapanthus – The semi-dwarf Ever Sapphire™ Agapanthus provides very early buoyant blooms for playful color and texture, reblooming for even more beauty throughout the season.  A pollinator magnet that provides beautiful cut flowers on multiple spikes, Ever Sapphire is fast-growing, tough and drought tolerant.  Part sun Zones 8-11, reaching 20-24″ high x 12-18″ wide.

We also added the Pink Veronica, which is a new plant to me.

  • Moody Blues™ Pink Veronica – This compact Veronica is covered in pink spikes of blooms all season long, flowering up to the first frost. It makes a gorgeous addition to cottage gardens as well as cutting gardens, providing verticality to cut flower arrangements. Thrives in full sun in Zones 6-9, reaching 12-14″ high and wide when mature.

Originally, we were going to add hydrangeas, but the beds get so much sun that I was kind of worried, so we added roses instead.

  • It’s A Breeze® Ivory Blush Rose – Winter hardy to zone 4, heat tolerant and extremely disease resistant, this tough but attractive groundcover rose makes gardening a breeze! The abundant blooms of It’s a Breeze appear in spring and rebloom into fall, blooming pure white in warm temperatures and pale pink in cooler temps. Maturing to 3’ high by 3–4’ wide and thriving in full sun, It’s a Breeze is an excellent choice for accents, containers, hedges, or mass plantings. Hardy in Zones 4-11.

On the side of the yard—right at the entrance, we added these amazing daylilies.

  • Evergreen Stella® Daylily – This evergreen version of the award-winning Stella de Oro Daylily is an early bloomer and re-blooms. Fragrant golden-yellow trumpet flowers rise above a dense clump of grassy green foliage. Daylily is an incredibly tough but terrific bloom that tolerates a wide range of conditions, from heat to clay soil. Disease and pest resistant, it thrives in full sun in Zones 4-10, reaching 10-12″ high when mature.

So you’ve see the plan.

Want to see the finished yard?

Let’s GO.

A backyard garden area with freshly turned soil bordered by black landscape edging, next to a white fence and patio with pavers and scattered bricks, surrounded by green trees and grass.

A backyard garden area with bare soil bordered by black edging in front of a white picket fence, with green grass, trees, and a small shed in the background. The sky is overcast.

Piles of soil and a curved black plastic landscape edging are set up near a paved brick walkway and a white wooden fence in a garden, with some loose bricks lying nearby. Green trees are visible in the background.

Here’s where we started.

Before the sod.

Before the flowers.

Before the plants.

There was this.

And now?

It looks like this.

A cluster of green Veronica spicata plants with tall spikes of small, delicate pink flowers grow in dark, mulched soil in a garden setting.

A neatly landscaped garden with flower beds and a planter sits along a white wooden fence, with green grass, trees, and sunlight filtering through the leaves in the background.

A small green shrub grows in mulched soil near a white wooden fence, surrounded by other leafy plants with sunlight filtering through the garden.

Purple-blue agapanthus flowers and pink spiky heather blooms grow in a mulched garden bed, with green leaves and stems visible among the dark soil.

A white house with a screened porch is partially hidden by leafy green trees and bushes, with a white picket fence in front and sunlight filtering through the branches.

A small variegated shrub with green and cream leaves grows in a garden bed covered with mulch, backed by a white picket fence and other green plants in sunlight.

A single yellow flower blooms on a slender green stem, surrounded by long, narrow leaves. The background is blurred, showcasing dark soil and foliage.

A white picket fence surrounds a garden with neatly trimmed bushes and two potted flowering plants. Sunlight filters through tree branches, casting shadows on the grass and driveway.

Two tall, purple flowers with long green leaves grow in a mulched garden bed, with a white picket fence and other plants visible in the background.

A white wooden fence with two black flower pots holding pink flowers stands in front of a sunlit backyard patio, surrounded by green trees and shrubs.

Can you believe it’s the same space?

It’s SO AMAZING when you drive up now to see this instead of that tiny forgotten piece of land.

I can’t wait to watch it grow and the flowers to bloom this summer.

A small green shrub with glossy leaves grows amid dark brown wood mulch, partially lit by sunlight.
I also wanted to give a shout-out to these boxwoods.

These are the same boxwoods that we have in the front yard.

They start off smaller, but the ones in the front have really grown over the past year. Here’s a little more about them.

  • Better Boxwood® Heritage™ – Heritage boasts dense, deep green foliage that enhances any garden setting. Its traditional boxwood habit, combined with a more compact size, makes it ideal for creating low hedges that beautifully frame pathways or entrances. Heritage’s symmetry and adaptability also make it an excellent choice for topiary designs, adding a touch of structure to your landscape. Perfect for use as a hedge, on taller foundations, or in containers, and it responds well to pruning into various shapes. Sustainably bred for disease resistance, Heritage ensures a lush, vibrant appearance with minimal maintenance. Hardy in Zones 5-9, 3–4’ high x 2–3’ wide when mature.

A man in a cap, t-shirt, and shorts uses a shovel to dig in a garden bed beside a white fence on a sunny day, surrounded by green grass and plants—a classic cottage garden before and after transformation in progress.

A woman in black clothing stands smiling in a sunny backyard garden, holding a shovel near a white picket fence. Plants and soil are visible in the foreground, capturing a cottage garden before and after transformation.

And a shout out to the gardeners (I took my gloves off for this picture).

It was a labor of love.

And so much FUN creating something beautiful together.

A backyard garden area with freshly turned soil bordered by black landscape edging, next to a white fence and patio with pavers and scattered bricks, surrounded by green trees and grass.
And one more time because it makes me so happy.

From this.

A neatly landscaped garden with flower beds and a planter sits along a white wooden fence, with green grass, trees, and sunlight filtering through the leaves in the background.

To this.

It’s going to be an AMAZING summer.

If you need me?

I’ll be outside—waiting for the butterflies.

PS Here’s a fun little video we filmed in the middle of the project.

disclosure: this post was written in collaboration with The Southern Living Plants Collection.

All opinions are my own.

Please see my disclosure page for more information.

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Posted On: May 26, 2025

Written By: KariAnne Wood

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