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© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
In this Issue:
1. Letter from Shaye
2. My Gardening Philosophy
3. A few of my favorite garden
inspiration sources
4. Planning a potager-style garden
5. What does the garden look like naked?
6. Keeping a Tidy Garden
7. My Gardens
8. What To Plant To Get The Look
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
Could there be a better time to be a gardener? In the day of internet
purchases and online chat forums, we are able to access all manner of
information on how to serve our unbridled ambitions for our gardening
spaces.
It was this media form that introduced me to gardening subjects that
changed my world: the potager garden, British garden-guru Monty Don,
New England artist Tasha Tudor, and market gardening.
It’s through these subjects that the large flower and vegetable gardens
at our farm have molded. Each garden has been built with a different
intention and purpose, though they all work together to achieve our
goals here on the farm: beauty and production.
Regardless of which book or gardening guru encourages you to build
your gardens, it’s always good to ask yourself: what’s the purpose of my
garden? What do I want it to do?
Are you wanting to grow cut flowers for fresh bouquets to put throughout
the house? Do you want basket loads of peppers, tomatoes, herbs, and
greens? Or do you simply want something pretty to look at from your
kitchen window?
I hope that whatever your goal or mission you’ll find a bit of inspiration
from my gardens, though they are still very much a work in progress.
Though, truly, is the work of a gardener ever done?
May your labors be blessed this season.
Shaye
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
My Gardening Philosophy
It’s taken me time to come to grips with our land and gardens here at the farm (and plenty of trial and
error). Monty Don once offered the advice to “rip it out if you don’t love it!” and I hate to say I’ve taken
that advice literally too many times to count. But because a large portion of our gardens are designed
for beauty, I simply must. A strong example would be the white peonies that just happened to bloom
next to the bright orange and black poppies early in the spring. Soft, delicate, white plumes next to the
vibrant and (frankly) harshly colored poppy? It simply couldn’t be. So out the poppies came.
In fact, I’ve had to redo entire beds as my taste and style change. Buy my gardening philosophy is
quite simple: whatever the garden is for, it’s got to be beautiful.
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
My Favorite Garden Inspiration Sources
Lord knows I can’t inspire myself. I’ve tried. Instead, my coffee tables and bookshelves are weighted
by authors and photographers who have impacted Le Chalet with their work. Often, when I feel
creatively dry or uncertain about a particular area of the gardens, I head to these resources for help.
I hope they’ll come to give you great confidence in your gardens as well.
English Cottage Gardening
Pleasures of the Cottage Garden
Tasha Tudor’s Gardens
Perfect French Country
Perfect English Farmhouse
The Country Garden
Seasons at the Farm (yes, this one is mine!)
The Layered Garden
Parisienne Farmgirl
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
PLANNING A POTAGER-STYLE GARDEN
Potager (noun): A kitchen garden.From French jardin potager ‘garden providing vegetables for the pot’.
Style-wise, I could consider most of my spaces to be english cottage gardens in all their overgrown,
free-flowing glory. However, when I refer to the garden that surrounds my kitchen wall, I use the
term “potager”. In this space, we grow flowers, vegetables, and herbs. This is the garden where I go at
suppertime dig up a few potatoes, tug out a few green onions, and snip some parsley from my plants.
This garden serves two important functions. The first is to look beautiful as this garden surrounds
our house and serves as our “landscaping”. Second, the garden is meant to be full of useful produce
that we can gather into a basket in small amounts as we need it. As you think about your potager,
here’s a few important steps to take:
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
1. ESTABLISH THE SPACE
When we first arrived on our farm years ago, our now potager was a flat patch of grass and scrubby
shrubs. I must have marked out the pathways and fence lines a hundred times before I settled on
where they should be permanently and I’m thankful I did. I have to deeply ponder the question: how
will I use this space? How do I want it to serve us? What’s the best way for it to be set up? Monty
Don suggests leaving your pathways at least 4 feet wide (and rightfully so if you’ve ever tried to haul
a full wheelbarrow down a narrow, gravel path). It’s also important to note how you move through
the space. Do you take a certain path each time? Is your set up easy to navigate with tools or loads of
compost? Does it flow freely as you work through the space? As you set your pathways, also consider
the fact that people will naturally always take the shortest path to a destination whether that’s an
established pathway or not. Accept this and make sure to account for it as you lay the groundwork
of your garden.
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
2. LET THE CREATIVE JUICES FLOW
Let the creative juices flow, baby! Pinterest. Magazines. Blogs. Friend’s gardens. Gather inspiration
from as many sources as you can find! Sometimes, this can be as simple as heading to antique store
and finding a focal piece (such as an old statue or whiskey barrel) to use in the garden. Other times,
a trip to the nursery for a large tree or planter will do the trick. Cheesy as it may be, I like to print or
copy images of gardens that I adore and piece them together into a collage of sorts. It helps to keep
me focused on a color scheme and cohesive vision for the space. If you’re a visual person, I highly
recommend this step. Keep it simple, but keep it inspired!
3. MARRY BEAUTY AND FUNCTION
THE FUNCTION
Our entire farm is a functional place. Things serve a purpose. Even the flowers that will be planted
in the potager will be of assistance to our bees. Your garden has to be functional if you’re to get
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
anything out of it! Honor this by making sure it’s not overly ambitious, that the paths are wide
enough to function in, that the garden beds are large enough to accommodate your desired crops,
and that you can move organically and easily through the space. What is it that you’re wanting to get
out of your garden? Write a list and ensure your plan going forward makes that happen.
THE BEAUTY
Once the bones of your garden are in place and it is functional to serve you in the way you desire, then
comes the beauty. This is often in the form of cottage style perennials or annual hanging baskets, but
can also include extra special details like wrought-iron fencing, wooden trellises for climbing plants,
stacks of old terra cotta pots, ornamental urns, or garden seating. I find that often the “beautification”
of a garden requires layering. The first year of your potager, focus on the bones and functionality
of the garden. By year two, you’ll be able to layer in the beautifying details and flowers. Year three,
you can adjust if need be and continue to layer in more. This pattern will continue for many years.
Be patient with yourself in this process: no potager is built overnight. We often are drawn to this
particular type of garden because it feels comfortable, worn in, approachable, and detailed. All of
these take patience.
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
VIDEO: What does the garden look like naked?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nsjGuj8PpM&t=246s
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
VIDEO: Keeping a Tidy Garden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWtTMIq-MoY
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
My Gardens
The Potager: The potager is a large garden that surrounds the outside of our home. It has large gravel
pathways and beds lined with local rocks. The garden beds flow like waves - nothing is straight
or angular other than the rails that line the vegetable bed. In these gardens, we grow herbs, small
vegetable crops, and flowers. This is the garden that showcases my roses. Each bed is filled to the
brim with all manner of cottage flowers. Because these beds surround the house, they’re often the
beds that get the most attention.
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
The Courtyard: The courtyard gardens, once again, utilize large gravel pathways and beds lined
with rocks. They showcase many of the same flowers that the potager does, though vegetables don’t
make an appearance in this slightly more formal garden. The pathways are defined with flagstone
and an outdoor eating area is set up amongst the flowers. It centers around a large juniper, which
serves as the focal point. Because the soil under the courtyard was so poor (it had previously been
covered by an old deck), we opted raise the beds a bit up off the ground by mounding new, rich soil
and lining the beds with rocks to retain it. Because of this bad soil, we also grow many things in pots
in the courtyard, such as a crab apple tree, herbs, and succulents.
The Greenhouse Gardens: When we moved into our home, the entire area to the left of the
cottage was grass. It took a few years, but we finally were able to rip it all out and replant the entire
area. We affectionately call it the “greenhouse gardens” because it’s where we decided to build a
permanent greenhouse/potting shed for all of my gardening equipment and seed starting supplies.
The greenhouse gardens are now home to two small ponds, a stream lined with Creeping Jenny and
succulents, a few David Austin roses, more perennials than I could ever begin to name, an almond
tree, an immature hardy persimmon tree, and a small heirloom apple tree. This garden has many
more years to travel before it will be a full, mature garden that Monty Don would approve of, but it’s
certainly far better than grass!
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
Video: Building a Small Garden Pond: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtwcjGkSb9Q
The Market Garden: The market garden was born out of a need to grow more of our food supply.
There are certain vegetables, such as carrots and beets, that we require much more of than the small
potager garden could supply. A small flat spot in a gully at the top of the property became home
to our market garden rows. These rows are 30” wide (the width of my broadfork and rack) and are
separated by 18” pathways. The pathways are lined with weed paper and covered with mulch to
reduce weeds. In these rows, we are able to grow a years supply of carrots, beets, potatoes, tomatoes,
green beans, peppers, yellow onions, purple onions, garlic, shallots, parsnips, okra, basil, squash, and
whatever other odds-and-ends I decide to plant. The market garden has revolutionized how much
we can grow - I only wish we would have built it sooner!
The Meadow Garden: The meadow garden is currently a large patch of perennials grasses, wild
flowers, European white birch trees, and fruit trees. We used to keep our pigs on the same plot of land
so it’s certainly fertilized enough! Though we have large plans for this plot of land in the future, we’re
giving it a few years rest to ensure we can execute the design well and to allow the trees to get a bit
more established. In the future, this completely open bit of land will serve as the location for a large
pond and “woodland” type garden that will feature shade plants, hidden pathways, and secret gardens.
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
Building a Perennial Garden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5lx4u5TqJA&t=215s
© 2019 Shaye Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
What To Plant To Get The Look
Though far from exhaustive, this list will get you headed in the right direction if the cottage garden
is the look you’re trying to achieve in your own space.
Hollyhocks
Lupine
Dahlias
Delphinium
Foxgloves
Tulips
Daffodils
Succulents
Russian sage
Yarrow
Hydrangeas
English roses
Irises
Ranunculus
Lilies
Ferns
Shasta daisies
Hostas
Creeping Jenny
Forget Me Nots
Marigolds
Peonies
Lilys
Crocus
Lavender
Evening Primrose
Lily of the Valley
Solomon’s Seal
Vining Plants
Clematis
Creeping Virginia
Honeysuckle
Boston ivy
Climbing roses
Wisteria
Fruiting plants to incorporate
Raspberries
Currants
Blueberries
Strawberries
Herbs to incorporate
Rosemary
Parsley
Tarragon
Mint
Oregano
Sage
Chamomile