Planting the Garden
With winter weather outside right now and the greenhouse garden covered up- I am dreaming about warm spring days and pretty little blooms on the plants. And we are planning on replanting a lot of the plants this season, it also offers an opportunity to add more areas of those beauties that are perfect for clipping and enjoying in seasonal bouquets.

We do have a lot of the English cottage style garden favorites planted already. Garden & iceberg roses, foxgloves, hollyhocks, lambs ear, lilac and more. With the unusual winter this year, we may be adding more than usual back to the garden and with the Heirloom Roses catalog arriving the other day, I am getting more and more excited about spring and garden everything coming soon. Today, I am sharing a few of my favorites for planting for bouquets & also a couple things I am planning on ordering to add to the cutting garden.
Favorite Blooms for Bouquets

I have a definite love for purples, whites, sage greens, dusty pinks & a pop of peony pinks in the gardens- and those are on repeat in window boxes and potted plants each year. The greenhouse garden area is full of shades of purples and whites with foxgloves, hollyhocks, sage and iceberg roses along with some pretty pinks with peonies and garden roses. Here are favorite plants for an English cottage bouquet:
- Foxgloves
- Sage
- Salvia
- Hollyhock
- Rosemary
- Iceberg Roses
- Lilac
- Lambs Ear
- Sweet Peas
- Eden Roses
- Earth Angel Roses
- Larkspur
- All Dressed Up Roses
- Ingenious Mr. Fairchild Rose
- Lavender

On Repeat
My favorite way to plant the garden? With my favorite plants on repeat for big impact. Like the foxgloves for example- the more the merrier in my opinion. And I fully indulge that love by adding more to the garden each year. Foxgloves should be planted two years in a row to have blooms each year- and though they are toxic and you should be careful – don’t believe the hype that gophers will leave them alone. Do you remember the battle we had with the gophers chewing the entire root system away from the foxgloves last year? We had to pull all the foxgloves and plant them in wire cages – and even then, they managed to find a way to steal what they wanted. You can read more about those cages and the foxgloves vs gopher saga HERE

Side note: This photo is from a couple of years ago- last year this Cecile Brunner along with several other plants like our wisteria & camellia didn’t bloom as usual. We ended up getting a handful of roses later into summer rather than the flush of roses that it usually has each spring. We think maybe the weather affected it- but if anyone has any ideas on what may have happened or remedies – please share. Fingers crossed it will be blooming fully this year.
Potting Shed Garden Path
This is definitely an area we will be tinkering with this year. The gophers Favorite spot to come through and enjoy everything. Somewhere under all that snow is the potting shed garden. That crazy winter storm left a mess and some roof damage on the potting shed- so we are currently dreaming up some changes and ideas for this area once this winter view changes to what it usually looks like this time of year. I am getting excited for a new look!

I regret not cutting the hellebore’s before the storm moved in- though I would not have imagined it would look like 3-4′ of winter snow here- our winters look more like feet of rain each year. But somewhere under there are several containers full of bulbs that I am hoping will pop up soon after this melts off. Thankfully, the rain we are getting seems to be helping the snow to melt a bit.
Rose Additions
Last year, we added a bunch of Eden roses and hydrangeas to the garden- and this year looking to add a few more purple shades in garden roses as well. I am currently obsessing over the beautiful Quicksilver rose and Plum Perfect which both have that silvery purple shade.

But of course, doing some shopping yet so there may be even more additions. I will share any others I fall in love with in case you are looking for purples to add to your garden too.

Shop the Look
Remember that post I did about roses that look like peonies? I am adding a few more of those lookalike rose varieties to the garden this year as well. I will share a post all about which ones I ordering soon and also share my top favorite roses and plants in a few color palettes – it is all about thinking spring over here!
What about you? Do you have garden update plans this year? What are you planting?
Happy Monday all.
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Boy, we have had severe weather! Our twelfth atmospheric storm is tomorrow! Will my 75 Provonce Lavendars make it? Probably not; they don’t like to be soggy.
For me, I am going to wait to see what makes it through and reassess. The good news is that our gardens here in California will be lush and without a drought. Many of us will have new areas to plant.
Sadly the Wisteria will be limited in blooms due to the heavy rains, but those Roses and Japanese Maples will be amazing. Looking forward to getting some slow-release fertilizer on the survivors.
PS> Thank you for the beautiful and motivating post. The rose collection is gorgeous!
It sure has been nutso this winter!! the next river moving in tomorrow as well- stay safe wherever you are in California! I am hopeful that your lavenders will make it! There is good and bad with the weather for sure- the drought ending is definitely a good thing! So, Yes indeed to the new areas to plant and with all the extra rain to help make them lush!
We live in Grass Valley in northern CA. I so relate to your weather dIlemas!! We too did not get the blooms we usually do last year. I currently have 85 roses and none of them performed well for the usual spring burst. Here we got a late frost which killed the buds. What we had literally turned black and fell off. We did get blooms during the summer but nothing like what we usually get in May. We also missed the wisteria and hydrangea blooms.
I must say, I am “itching” to get my hands in the dirt snd plant too!! Today and from the looks of the forcast, we will be having rain forever!! STay dry and dream! Love your posts!!
What a Rollercoaster…20 degrees to 70 degrees…what’s a flower to do… Luv your roses, etc. franki