Classic Charleston Landscape with Cottage Garden Vibes

Meeting Green
Jul 21
3 min read

Charleston is often described as "a city set in a garden," and anyone who has visited our southern city or is lucky enough to call Charleston home understands why. There are many grand, historic gardens throughout Charleston with abundant charm and beauty; plus small, secluded spaces that are overflowing with plants and character! We're on a mission to transform as many suburban yards into magical, useful gardens that seamlessly fit into our city's classic garden style. This West Ashley project started as a blank slate and we worked with the client to create a classic Charleston landscape with cottage garden vibes, perfect for their family's lifestyle.

Creating Outdoor Rooms

When it comes to designing a Charleston garden, every detail counts and depending on the size of the space, you may have to get creative! To help maximize space, we love creating outdoor "rooms" and finding ways to unify the garden and highlight these individual spaces. The first question we ask new clients is, "how are you going to use the space?" and design your dream garden around those goals! This yard was completely cleared and transformed into a useable space for entertaining, lounging, gardening, and more!

The main space features a tennessee variegated crab orchard patio with oversized outdoor furniture and a table ready for guests! With a TV mounted on the exterior of the home and a grill on the back of the patio, this room is ready for any party or quite night hanging out in the garden! The matching large format stepping stones lead you to the storage shed and edible garden, seamlessly uniting the spaces! Plus, plant beds full of lush greenery and seasonal flowers line the shaded back yard and help unify the various rooms. Around the corner, we created another room featuring an outdoor shower that utilizes the same hardscaping materials, tying it into the rest of the space. The plants and selected materials help connect the individual spaces and ensure the yard feels cohesive!

Enhancing Curb Appeal

Now let's talk about the front yard! This beautiful home was begging for lush beds with showy flowers and interest! We maintained a cohesive look by blending the style of plantings with the home's features and created a dreamy cottage inspired feel. First, we extended and curved the left plant bed to add softness and balance the space. ⁠In that left bed, we added a large vitex to the corner to anchor the design and provide height. ⁠The vitex is a classic southern shrub prized for it's lavender flower spikes and can even be trained and trimmed into a tree! Finally, we designed and installed a beautiful pathway and border using old Carolina brick, leaning into the classic Charleston vibe.

Plant Selection

Now it's time for the fun part... plants! We used a diversity of plant material for this project while still maintaining a harmonious look from the front yard to the back yard. The front yard receives more sun so we used roses (a classic cottage garden selection!) panicle hydrangeas, agapanthus, and classic foundational tea olives! We love utilizing tea olives for their white, fragrant fall flowers. In the back yard, large portions of the space are shaded by an oak tree so we opted for more shade loving options like farfugium, mahonia, mophead hydrangeas, and continued the agapanthus. We utilized podocarpus as the foundational shrub due to its unique column shape growth habit and dark green foliage.

Panicle hydrangeas thrive in more sun than their mophead hydrangea cousins, so we switched the varieties depending on the lighting conditions! Both are favorites of southern gardeners and their showy mound of flowers enhance the cottage garden vibes of the yard!

Plus, every garden deserves a grand entrance! We added climbing Peggy Martin roses to this existing arbor and can't get over the results! Through the arbor, along the fence, we installed a horizontal stainless cable system for confederate jasmine. Next spring, this fence will be covered in lush greenery and fragrant star shaped flowers!