Well, Jane, I think you're in the right place. lol. There are several members in your area who can help with local advice, but here's my 2c worth: I would start your lasagna now, and seed with annuals, to give you some summer colour. Things like cleome, cosmos will give some heighth, and a very cottagey look. Marigolds, calendulas and zinnias will add lots more. You could also winter sow your perennials, saving you more $$'s.
And I'm sure many more will have a few pointers for you!!

Welcome, Nancy.

Welcome Jane!

I agree with Nancy, one of the best sources for info is right here! Cottage is really friendly and the New England forum, though not as active, is just as nice and there are some great folks in CT.

For seeds in our climate, I order from Fedcoseeds.com and make sure I'm on Johnny's mailing list (great how-to-grow info)

To my mind, a cottage garden is a hodge-podge of what you like best. Let things re-seed at will and then rip out the ones that don't fit. It takes a while. Best advice: learn to recognize the half-dozen or so common weeds in your area and be ruthless in the Spring.

Lasagna's a great start!

Ana

I'm a super low-budget gardener, and it really doens't make gardening take any longer, as long as you have the energy and back for it. Sign up for Freecycle if you haven't already done that, you can ask for lasagna bed materials on there, and even plant divisions. I think you could start right now with sowing perennials that you can plant out later once you have your beds. Some perennials will even bloom a little their first year, but you should rely on the annuals for flowers. I think Home Depot is still doing their buy-one get-one sale on seed packets for a couple more days, just browse and grab some things that catch your eye as cottage-y. You will fit them into a scheme, don't worry.

All those seedlings can grow while you plan your flower beds and get ideas from photos here and in magazines and books. You can use your extra seeds to start trading in the Seed Exchange for the new things you decide you want to grow.

The Wintersowing method is the easiest way I have found for starting seeds, especially because there's litle to no cost for the set-up. "Wintersowing" goes until May 1, and then we call it "Spring-sowing" and do the same thing. We use containers with lids as mini-greenhouses.

I think a lot of great cottage gardens look like a big hodge-podge of plants. Possibly that may be the look of a plant sale hit head-on, so I'm not sure what look you're trying to avoid. Do you want a more controlled look, or do you just want to be careful that you select plants for blooms all season, instead of ending up with whatever is on sale? I think the most important thing is for you to find pictures of what looks great to you, and try to repeat it.

One question to ask yourself is how "rampant" you like plants to be. Will you be grateful for plants that create seedlings all over the place or spread by root, or frustrated? Those plants are a good way to expand the garden quickly, but not if you'll hate them in 3 years.

There are threads on this forum where people name their favorite Cottage plants, you can get some great ideas from it. You can search for them at the bottom of the main Cottage page. If you don't know flowers by name yet, and need to see pictures, there are online vendors whose photos you can use to make a list of what you want. I googled for vendors of cottage plants, and found this one (I'm not sending you there to buy): http://www.gracefulgardens.com/perrin.htm They also have a page with advice about creating a garden.

If you want help with lists of things to start from seed, just ask, and give your soil type and amount of sun.

Best of luck to you!

wintersowing. Seed exchange. Plant exchange. Learn to propagate.

It's time-consuming, but you might go back to last spring and summer in the posts here and look at gardens in your climate to see how they're put together and with what plants.

You could start with Gottagarden's posts, Mr. Morton and Mary Lu for starters. There are many others; theirs are the first that come to mind when I think of 'who is a good example?'

Nell

Thank you for all the answers. I had time after getting a load of fresh manure yesterday to check out some of Gottagarden's posts and I love the look of her garden. It's rampant, but blends and I know that's an art form. That's what I meant when I said I didn't want to look like I hit a plant sale head on. There is thought to what she planted and where. I do love rampant. I bought a blush noisette rose this spring because she was the biggest messiest rose I could find. :)

I went to Fedcoseeds.com and wasted a lot of time selecting some seeds only to find out they would charge me $5 for not ordering at least $30 and then $10 to ship a few packs of seeds that could be put in an envelope. They are off my list of places to buy permanently. I then spent time at Johnny's only to go to check out and find their site had only registered one of my purchase requests. Sigh.

I will try Graceful Gardens with no real hope. On the plus side I got a nice big tray of periwinkles for 20% off on the way home from getting the manure. :)

Thanks for the help. I will keep searching and learning.

Forget what I said about Fedco -- I mis-read it last night...must have been really tired. I am over there now shopping. :)

A CT zone 6 gardener who has good photos on GW is gardengranny2. Search not only here, but all Forums.
She put her pictures of last July on Perennials, for one.

Also look for Gldno1 (I think that's right) who gardens in zone 6 MO and has some great gardens.

I'm not leaving out anybody on purpose, if you garden in zone 6 or 5, speak up, please.

Nell

Great ideas Nell (have a look at photos  wish I had more bandwidth) and Token (swaps).

Don't know exactly where you are, Janegael, but it sounds like there's a great CT swap coming up, link below. Don't be afraid to show up with nothing but cookies: there are always too many plants at these things, and you'll meet some wonderful people!

Re: FedcoSeeds (don't type in just Fedco  that's some light bulb place) does indeed want $5 handling if you don't order $30. Seed shipping is free in continental US, I think. I grow so much veg & order with a coupla friends, that we have no problem getting to $100 for the 10% discount. All I can say is their descriptions are honest, seed count generous, prices among the lowest I've found for great quality, and wonderful folks to deal with. I've been ordering from them since 1988.

Ana

Here is a link that might be useful: May 17 2009 Swap at Wolfe Park

For thrifty seed-shopping, I like:
Value Seeds, which is super--cheap, it's the leftovers from Thompson and Morgan. When they update their site they'll have something like 11 pages of stuff. Shipping is $2

Swallowtail Garden Seeds, good prices and reasonable shipping

T's Flowers and things: I haven't bought from there yet, but her seeds are $1 a pack, although shipping is a wee bit high. She has a very good rating at Garden Watchdog.

By the way, even though I just directed you to Graceful gardens to get a look at flowers, they have a really good rating on Garden Watchdog too.

I looked at Fedco's rating on Dave's Garden and saw that one woman made the same mistake as I did. She mistakenly ordered a tree and found $15 shipping, so I must have done the same thing.

I planted Burpee seeds in the little peat starters and, except for the shasta daisies, they did absolutely nothing. The morning glories never came up and the few marigolds who bothered are very spindly even though I have a full spectrum light sitting almost on them. The daisies look great, so I have to think it was the seed. I'll never buy from them again, too much money wasted. I'm re-using the pots with some pink love-in-a-mist I found today. I hope that works ok.

Thanks for the link to the swap. I'll have to see if I can make it. I offered a few shasta daisy babies and cookies.

It's 80 here and was supposed to be 70. It's too hot to do anything because I'm so used to it being in the 50's. I guess the back of my car full of manure will have to stay there until tomorrow. Fortunately it's cooked enough not to really stink. Anyone who rear-ends me is in for a real surprise. LOL

Thanks for all the great links. I've looked at flowers until I'm starting to confuse them but it's great. I went to Lowes today and came away with the most amazing tray of dianthis that are pinks, some with stripes and two 6" coral bells for only $2 each.

I'm in 5, though in Missouri. I used to live in Jersey.

Jane-you had trouble with Burpee? How sad! They are normally quite reliable. I love Wayside Gardens, though it is pricey (and the shipping charges this year are terrible). Oh, and Jung's. They are great. Lots of selection, pretty decent prices.

Plants I recommend: morning glories. And they reseed like crazy in my yard. And, sweet william, which also has reseeded like crazy in my yard. And, pinks.

I would love to post some pics, but haven't figured out how to resize my photos for this site. I try to post & they keep getting rejected, as the pics are too big.