Creating a cottage garden - help

I have learnt about spring gardens(and bulbs) and have a nice little one in front garden.
I have learnt about fruit and have two apples, some raspberries blueberry etc

I know what I want for the winter garden

And of course roses

Ooo I have lots of geraniums (perlagoniums) in pots

I would now like to add plants to my rose beds to create a cottage garden. I have thirty roses in so far

I am aiming for a very blousey look with some fairy statues dotted about and the box hedging taken up and made into topiary which I can dot around the garden.

Seeds will need to be sown direct into the border for ha
Perennials would be great as would any self seeders.
I'm happy for colours to clash but any good planting combinations till I learn myself?

I know foxgloves dicentra and Daphnes are out because of the children.

 

The flowers I know are
Dianthus
Echinacea
Euphorbia
Rudbeckia
Sweet peas
Sun flowers
Delphiniums
Hollyhocks
Red hot pokers
Mallow
Thistles
Peony (not buying any more of these as I don't do well with them)
Dahlias

 

Lavender is a very traditional cottage garden herb and, if planted around roses, will help to keep aphids away. Marigolds help with this as well.

 

A nice selection but all very tall , I would be worried if the roses are only newly planted and not established that they may get drown out and shaded out , I would choose smaller plants to grow to start off with

 

These are all summer bloomers. Are you not worried that there'll be not much going on with it for much of the year, and then a riot of colour in summer only?

For summer blooms, I'd consider some of the upright lobelias. Personally I like correopsis too. Not so much the big expensive ones in the main garden centres, but the smaller more 'breezy' ones. I find them quite easy to grow from seed.

One thing that doesn't get enough attention when it comes to decorative plants is plain old coriander, yes the herb that you put in salads and curry. Given open ground (as opposed to being confined to a pot), it will grow to upwards of 3ft tall, and produces a mass of tiny white flowers that from certain angles actually look like they're floating unsupported just about the ground. When the flowers finish, the seeds come, and you get little round beads again suspended in mid air. Finally when the whole plant is finished at the end of the year and it starts to die, the whole things goes through a range of vivid autumn colours, including the most intense bright red. If you're lucky and the wind and the rain doesn't then flatten it, the now dead but still standing plant looks pretty good if it frosts over too. This reminds me, I must go out and get some coriander seeds

 

And the box hedge and most of the second list! Probably more at risk from putting grass into their mouths after rodents have walked over it (they're incontinent so piddle everywhere they go).
My advice is not to worry about "poisonous" plants and use the garden as a classroom instead. Stepson was bought up around Aconitum, Datura etc and is still going strong!

Good self seeders are;
Cerinthe. HA/B
Aquilega (although I would personally avoid them). P
Foxgloves. B
Viola. P
Cambrian Poppy. A or P
Hollyhocks (serious skin irritant to people with sensitive skin though). P
Nicotiana. A

A=annual, B=Biennial, HA=hardy annual, P=perennial

 

Oh no I didn't know that. I don't know enough about plants to teach them. One will b a baby. I might hold off doing it till I can learn more

 

With the exception of really really nasty plants (which foxglove is for its toxicity), I wouldn't be put off. As you already know (as you are a parent), you have to have eyes in the back of your head, cat like hearing, extra-sensory perception and cat like reactions anyway when looking after young kids. You can't take away every hazard, and if you try, you'll not only drive yourself mad but you'll also depriving the kids of a lot of fun and a lot of learning opportunities.

I always have nasturtium in my arsenal. With the older lad (and I'll be doing the same with the new lad this summer), I actually gave him bits to hold and watched with great amusement as he taste tested it, several times before the message sank in Every part of nasturtium is edible and harmless, but its strong peppery taste is not favourable to young taste buds, so it doesn't take too long to get the message that its not good to eat random things. That said, I did catch the lad eating a piece of poinsettia when he was 3. I just played war with him, deliberately 'over reacting' with intention of striking fear into his soul about the consequences of eating things that you've not been told is safe to eat.

If you worry about things they'll try to eat in the garden, then watch out for pebbles, lumps of mud, earth worms, snails, and for that matter, anything, anything at all that looks like it might fit in a mouth.