I wish I had terra cotta tiles on my roof, blue ones! It sounds like you don't want any desert sorts of plants, or which might seem like a Spanish influence, like Bird of Paradise and Bouganvilla. Although you could create a lush look with such plants, and they would be suitable for the climate.

Maybe you would like rambling roses growing against the house. Have you toured your area and seen any gardens which you like? Oleander grows well in that area. It is a poisonous bush, by the way. If you have kids you'd have to teach them to stay away from it. Ceanothus does well in So. Cal.

Lorna

Tamberc, there is sooooo much you can grow here. I'm a native So.Cal gal and have always had cottage gardens. You may just need to amend your soil and water more than you are used to. Then plant away!

What area of So.Ca. are you in - O.C.? L.A.? I.E.? San Diego? High Desert? I'm on the northern slopes of the San Gabriels, near Wrightwood, so I'm in a colder zone but I manage to grow just about anything I want except citrus. But there are others on here in the warmer 9-10 zones that I'm sure can help. And if you get a chance check out Hoovb's posts on the roses and clematis forums.

Btw, do you have any homeowner's restrictions on what you can plant?

Diana

Here is a link that might be useful: my cottage gardens

Tamberc,

Imo, the arched entryway takes away from the cottage look more than the roof tiles. Could you grow a vine up and over those columns?

Striped awnings and window boxes sound nice.

Do some research on native plants for your area. They will be the easiest to grow.

Good advice to amend the soil. You need to be flexible about your cottage plants, because like it or not, our lack of summer water (not to mention the looming water restrictions in many parts of the state) mean you will find it easier overall to embrace your Mediterranean architecture and the plants that grow well here.

The disadvantage of not being able to grow tulips, hyacinths, forsythia and delphiniums is easily offset by being able to grow many plants treated as annuals or deciduous perennials elsewhere. You can look in the Gallery, where I and several other zone 9/10 gardeners have posted lavish displays of flowers we have year-round. Check out the Annie's Annuals website for unusual cottage plants you won't find anywhere else. Her spring slideshow is terrific and a great idea-starter.

Don't fight your architecture; it's a losing battle. Pick plants that will contrast well against the earthtone colors, such as the brilliant purple of Tibouchina urvilleana or the blazing color of a "Barbara Karst" bougainvillea. Introduce a big curved bed into that boring lawn and fill it with blazing colors - the strong sun of Southern CA bleaches out soft pastel tones.

You have a natural environment that colder zone gardeners can only dream about using expensive greenhouses!

Oh - be VERY CAREFUL about using evergreen vines (including the aforementioned bougainvillea) in CA. Left untended they can rip your roof apart, and repairing a tile roof is mucho expensive!

Im no cottage garden expert, I mostly lurk here because I live in a similar climate to you and am trying to make my garden more cottagey and I love reading ideas here. But the one thing that I think detracts from your place is that big palm at the front. If you take that out and plant something softer it would totally change the look of your garden right away. that palm really stands out and just doesn't say "cottage garden" at all.

Before you yank out any more existing plants, a little more research may be in order.
You might start with the Gallery here and look specifically at posts by becr zone 9 CA, jkom51 Z9-CA, AngelCub and anybody else in zone 9 CA.

Your house is lovely. When your cottage garden is in and growing, the roof and arch will no longer be the prominent features.
Many, in fact most, of the homes featured on this forum are not exactly 'cottages' but the gardens are spectacular and nobody seems to mind.
Nell

Here is a link that might be useful: Palms in Cottage Gardens -- a good thread

I, like Diana and a few others here, am SoCal born and bred. I am in central CA now, and it is very different in feeling. You may not be crazy about the tile roof, but it is a great financial investment and great for the climate, and fires, not to mention beautiful.
Echoing a couple thoughts already presented, you probably want to think brighter colors, and you really do want to amend the soil. Add as much good stuff as you can afford, then continue to add whatever organic mulch you can find for cheap every year. Here, nut shells are very cheap.
I think the most cottagy thing you can do is to curve out your lawn. Starting on the right side of that photo, just make soft curves all the way down to that bottom landing strip by the drive. Not one big curve, but softly curving from one point to the other. That would create a wide bed along the drive way, and do the most to take away that standard box house look. Of course dhs so often like square lawn.... : )
I agree about taking out that palm tree, but to me, palm trees are the ugliest thing about California.
Let us know more specifically where you are, as that will make a lot of difference in specific plants. I suspect with a house that new, you may be out near BecR. I have many magazines that show great cottage gardens in SoCal, take a look at the stands.
Sunset Western Garden book is a must have, by the way.

I am a fifth generation South California girl. Part of my family was originally from New England and New York before going "west" in 1859. I have pioneer roots and ties to some early Spanish families and grew up loving the Spanish culture and heritage of South Cal.

I say, leave the palm. Add a fountain out front and play up the Spanish. You can still plant Cottage flowers, like a beautiful climbing rose up over your front door. (how about a climbing Don Juan - Ole!).
I lived in an old Spanish house with a recessed front "patio" and alcove to one side, but there were white Lady Banks roses growing on the arbor across the east end and they sprawled up onto the roof. There was an old Date Palm near the "Secret Garden" on the east side of the house towards the back that was so lovely and fruit trees nearby.

There were small "reflecting pools" that dotted the gardens here and there that my aunt had constructed back in the 1920s. Two Acacia trees were planted in the island of our front circle drive that bloomed every spring with fuzzy yellow flowers that reminded me of baby chicks or ducks. I loved the cool, smooth bark of the trunks of those trees and the blue-green colour of their leaves.

There were all kinds of cacti and succulents, including agaves, ornamental grasses big rocks and the like in the beds on either side of the front walk, and tall Red Hot Pokers that I still love and grow in my gardens here in Oklahoma. There were waves upon waves of flowers of every kind all around the house. No grass was grown except under my mother's clothes line :), and over on the west side at the base of the mountain where a clump of Prickly Pear Cactus grew that towered at about ten or more feet. All the paths were just narrow little dirt trails really. On that side there were lemon trees, Pomegranates, flowering ornamental trees and shrubs. Native Live Oaks grew all through the canyon around the house, but there was a stand of pines on the north side.

Beautiful white Callas grew and bloomed under the front windows in bricked-in beds built on top of the bricked patio - ferns too. I liked too the green moss or algae that grew on the damp bricks that gave it character. I remember Nasturtiums everywhere and lots of sweet, sweet smelling white Sweet Alyssum that crept out into the dirt paths. Golden California poppies and my favorite everlasting flower, Statice with its papery blooms of purple, pink, yellow and white that grew everywhere too. Mother never replanted it. It all came back year after year. There were irises of every colour, lilies, poppies, daisies, ivy, creeping myrtle, lots of Geraniums - just every kind of plant you would find in any cottage garden and then some. I remember Heliotrope (...oh...the fragrance). There was some kind of tiny leafed bamboo by one of the little pools. As a child I found it an intriguing place sit and play pretend games.

The original part of the house was built back in the early 1880s and my grand aunt added on to it and turned it into a fabulous Spanish ranch house in the early 1900s. There were stables down below the house and two little cabins where the ranch hands used to "bunk". She had a working horse ranch there in the canyon, so it wasn't a modern idea of how to cottage garden in a Spanish-style home, but a garden built back in the day when that was the way one gardened!

People drove out to our home to see it in the Spring and the ladies auxiliaries often came calling to buy flowers from my mother for their meetings and etc. It is now on the "historical homes" tour there in my home town.
It was my favorite place to live and still is!

I am not saying that you can or should grow all the things we had on our place, but to illustrate to you that you can grow cottage flowers and plants or anything you wish and still embrace the Spanish design of your beautiful home.

Sorry to have rambled on. (my bad)
~ Annie

I live half a world away from you in a zone 10 dry Mediterranean type of climate (despite being on the Atlantic). I garden in the "cottage spirit" rather than the traditional cottage style, because many of the herbaceous perennials that are the mainstay of typical (English) cottage gardens don't do well here or are simply unavailable. My house is also similar to yours in architecture and I have red terracota tiles in my roof. That has not deterred me to create not a purist cottage garden but a romantic sort of garden (most people would call it messy) that resembles a cottage garden in spirit.

There are a gazillion plants that grow well in this type of climate, but you must have decent soil and you need to water. Using a good percentage of native plants and other drought tolerant ones is a wise approach. Roses that are good for your climate include chinas, old teas and noisettes and these alone can give you the cottage look you're after. I grow a climbing yellow rose, Maigold, on the front of my house and everyone says how good it looks with the white stucco house and the red roof tiles.

You just need to get acquainted with your soil and climate and in no time you'll be able to grow a cottage type of garden.

Eduarda

Take all of your books about gardening across America, put them all in one big pile, and light a match. (Okay, maybe not.) We are different. However, we have choices that no one else has. You may miss lilacs, until you breathe the scent of citrus in bloom. You may miss tulips, but we have ranunculus -- blooms last longer, more flowers. You may miss delphiniums, but we have hundreds of different kinds of salvias. Instead of peonies, plant camellias. Hibiscus can work in a cottage garden. Sweetannie has a lot of great suggestions (and a beautiful post, too).

Here's just an example of a Coleonema (aka 'Breath of Heaven'). The pale pink flowers look almost creamy white in strong sun, it's evergreen and pest-free, needs hardly any water, and at about 4x4' makes a stunning background shrub for all kinds of other evergreens. It looks like this twice a year, once in Feb/March and then again in August/Sept.

No lilac or buddleia could be any prettier, I think:
{{gwi:18572}}

Of, yes! Ranunculas! I forgot them. How could I forget them?
Also there were Marguerites, colorful Gerbera daisies and bright colored Gazania Daisies, which I try to grow here in Oklahoma. They grew year round in So. Cal, but are as annuals here.

Mock Orange grows there. We had one and it smelled so sweet and "delicious", almost like orange blossoms.
A Meyer Lemon would be awesome to have growing in your yard.
I have to grow them in large pots here and take them inside in the fall.

I love and miss Pepper trees :(
They add a soft, filtered shade to any yard and are perfect with Spanish style homes or any place.

My gosh, there are lots and lots of flowers you can grow there. So many plants we cannot get here and many I miss very much.

Yes, go to Annie's Annuals & Perennials for flowers and plants that will grow happily for you in South California -
She is located near Berkley, and a tour of her gardens are a worthwhile trip any time of the year, but you can order on-line. You can sign up for e-mails from her to let you know about specials and events. She also will send you a hands-on catalog if you prefer.

~ sweetannie4u

Here is a link that might be useful: Check out Annie's Annuals & Perennials

What if you thought "romantic cloistered Spanish monastery" instead of "English garden"? Like it or not, you're not in an English climate or location, and I think you'll achieve a more stunning look by embracing the unique features of your house than by trying to make it fit an "English cottage" cookie-cutter mold.

See if you can find some pictures of San Juan Capistrano and other monastery gardens. Gorgeous! And cottagey.

Your house and roof are lovely BTW.

Here's a link to Hoovb's garden tour slide show. I'm warning you - make sure you're wearing a bib because you're gonna slobber all over yourself. : )

Diana

Here is a link that might be useful: hoovb's slide show

angelcub, thanks for posting that link to the slideshow. I hadn't seen it, and wow, how glorious was that!! A phenomenal example of a lush cottage garden with a Mediterranean house - my six poor rosebushes are hiding in shame right now, all rusty and blackspotted.....

Where is the OP? Did all this marvelous advice scare her away, or is she out amending soil and planting?

Hoov's slide show has some roses that I grow and like. Wasn't that a sight?

Nell

Yeah, talk about rose porn. ; ) Her gardens are jaw-dropping gorgeous. I wish I would have known about the tour sooner so I could have seen it live. Maybe next year.

Jkom, hope your roses recover soon. I bought 5 new ones last Sat. I just can't stay on the wagon but as DH says at least I'm not down at the local pub. : )

Diana