Creating Cottage Landscaping: Sweet Autumn Clematis

Hello Sweet Friends!

I’ve been slowly working on our landscaping. This is something I’m certainly not a professional at and to be honest it’s a bit intimidating being that I’ve never really done it before. The first year we moved in I planted a couple bushes out front just to give the slightest bit of curb appeal, but I really had no particular plan in mind for how I wanted it to look. After many trips to different greenhouses & nurseries & some research online I feel I now have an idea of what I’d like the end result to be.

One reason it felt intimidating is because of the overwhelming amount of selection or variety or plants. So basically what I did was start a board on Pinterest where I could pin ideas & pictures that inspire me. This way I could start to see what I was drawn to. I’m also thinking about the architectural style of our home & my interior design. Essentially I want the landscaping to mesh with the house’s style.

If you’ve read previous articles you already know that our home is a 1920s bungalow, but since it’s less than 900 square foot it’s considered a cottage 🙂 On the inside I love & have leaned hard towards the cottage/farmhouse style. When you look up cottage landscaping on Pinterest you get lovely whimsical gardens with lots of greenery & lush flower beds. Below are some pictures that have inspired me.

From Mobile Bay Magazine

From linenandlavender.blogspot.com

From fritzgignoux.com

 I can only hope my yard will look half as good as any of these pictures! Seriously how stinkin beautiful are they?! Lol! Personally I prefer only green & white in keeping with my neutral color pallet. So I’ll be using greenery with lots of texture & white flowers 🙂 But the first thing I knew I had to have to set the tone was some type of gorgeous vine! Our yard is small & completely enclosed by a 6 foot privacy fence. To me vines have a romantic feel & I know they’ll soften the harsher lines of our fence.

Oh I should probably mention, another reason I’m a bit intimidated by landscaping is because I don’t exactly have a green thumb…but I figure ya gotta start somewhere right? Lol! So in order to further narrow down the huge variety of plants out there I also searched for ones that say ‘easy to care for’ 😉

My search for green & white climbing vines that are easy to care for led me to Sweet Autumn Clematis. Once I saw some pictures, like the ones below, & read they’re rapid growers with a beautiful fragrance I was sold 🙂

From HGTV

From artsygardengirl.com

Sweet Autumn Clematis

After deciding on these beauties I tracked some down at a nearby nursery & bought 6 plants.

Planting Them

I strategically placed them along the fence. Then I dug a hole twice as big as the pot they came in & put a couple inches of potting soil in the bottom. Once the plant was in I filled in around it with a mixture of potting soil & the dirt I had dug up. Then I added a layer of mulch around the top of each plant. Then I gave each a decent amount of water.

Grow Babies Grow!

I put in a couple nails on the fence to wrap them around but I’m still deciding how I’m going to help them climb aka what kind of trellis I want to use. However, in some of their locations I’ve already provided something for them to climb such as a garden gate & an old chicken coop door 🙂 But I’ll fill ya in with what I decide on for the others!

I’m so excited to watch these sweet clematis grow & for our little backyard to begin to have that cozy cottage feel 🙂 This is obviously the first article I’ll be writing about our landscaping & I’m so happy to share this green thumb journey with you! Have an awesome day!

Thanks for stopping by our little blog!