A confession: When I bought my first home with a large garden - a cottage garden to be specific - I had plans to level it and plant something I considered more low maintenance. I soon discovered that a cottage garden truly is low maintenance, if you choose to treat it that way. I also discovered that I had no desire to treat it that way.

I preferred to use that cottage garden to teach myself the habits of the Tennessee flowers I had inherited from decades of dedicated and gifted gardeners.

I named that first treasure trove of native plants "Annie's Garden" after the previous person who had tended it. I documented all the plants in a journal, noting when they bloomed, what colors, how to take care of them. And I left that journal for the subsequent owners, along with a newly sculpted river of heirloom irises woven in and out of other plants and arranged to bloom in a carefully documented succession of colorful display throughout most of the spring into early summer.

Just as that cottage garden became such a part of my spring and summer at Cedar Lane, so too has the cottage garden become a part of 1008 Falls Avenue in the Montague Neighborhood of Madison, TN.

The current owner is a designer, who indeed has a deep appreciation for the colors and textures of the garden. This spring, when the flowers began to bloom, we carefully timed an update of pictures to coincide with the stages of the garden's explosion into spring.

This cottage display starts at the street with the plantings around the mailbox: 

Soon, the hollyhocks will bloomwith great stalks of colorful flowers up to 8 feet tall.

The green will be replaced with a colorful display of red, white, purple and pink.

A wide assortment of flowers will crowd the space with color and fragrance.

NOT to be outdone, the rest of the front yard also includes pockets of garden among the trees and along the front of the home:

And then there is the back yard - the real treasure of this garden. It includes irises, hollyhocks, roses, sedum, day lilies, and so much more. It also includes a patio off the living and dining rooms and french door from the downstairs master (currently used as a den) - so the home's residents can bring the outside in.

See more of this fabulous home in this video or at the bozTEAM Blog!