Cottage Garden Makeover.....Before and After.

When we bought the cottage 2 1/2 years ago,  it had been used primarily as a rental.  Other than very weedy grass and some cedar trees, there was nothing in the garden at all. 

This is how it looked in the real estate listing.  Just some lawn, which was completely dead when we viewed it, and a lovely large porch with some very odd posts????.  The whole deck is composite, as are the railings and the siding is vinyl.  I wanted to make it less "plastic" and more in keeping with the area.

We overlook a marina which is on Georgian Bay.....there are amazing cliffs all around and the area is famous for it's flagstone.

It is a very rocky area.  I wanted something indigenous to the area and something that would keep the weeds under control.  It also had to create a sitting area where we could add some greenery to give us some privacy as we face the marina and there is also a public footpath between us and the lake.

The contractor really wanted me to do interlocking, but that seemed far too urban and far too likely to get full of weeds in the cracks.  He was very much for doing a uniform rectangular patio. I went to his stone yard and saw this gorgeous, massive flagstone and knew this was it. In the end I had to provide him with drawings that I did, as he couldn't visualise what I wanted. Aparently it is hard to get these large pieces of flagstone, but he managed to get enough from the local quarry.

We created a random patio from the flagstone, leaving gravel between the cracks to allow the septic bed to breath (the patio covers part of the field).   We also left a gap on the one side to add a small garden to break up the mass of stone. My Gracie Girl follows me everywhere and is also deaf, so she doesn't hear me calling her to get out of the picture.

We used large armour stone right in front of the porch to give it a looser, more haphazard appearance.  We removed the plastic white trellis covering the underside of the porch and used cedar boards instead.

I really wanted it to look like we had cleared the area and the stone was an existing element....

I planted some low lying shrubby plants such as ornamental grasses which remain wispy but give some privacy.

I made this little path for Mooch because he used to walk right through the garden to get to the grassy bit.  The plantings had to be rugged as this area gets really harsh winters....

We left a bit of grass for Gracie....it actually is more of a weed mix.  Much to our neighbors chagrin, we refused to use roundup in our yard.  They have a golf green lawn....as least they did, there is now a pesticide and herbicide ban in Ontario.........

With the exeption of a couple of Canadian Hemlock trees, all of the plantings came from my city garden.  I split all of my perennials and took them to the cottage.

Here is the after........(that unused satellite dish is going to go).  The ruls is, whenever you go to the lake you have to bring back a stone for the garden.....

And here was the before.............