© 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