Backyard Landscaping Ideas for North Alabama

Cottage Garden

• Old-fashioned and charming, the cottage garden backyard landscape provides an exuberant blend of flowers and vegetables. Colors, textures and bloom times mix to ensure that the landscape looks alive with plants throughout the growing seasons. Intersperse stone or brick paths and containers to set off areas and make access easier for weeding and mulching. Plant self-seeding annual and perennial flowers, herbs and warm-season vegetables in Northern Alabama beginning in April.

  Cottage gardens complement smaller, one-story dwellings more attractively than large multistory homes. Create the cottage garden effect by grouping similar plants in an area in clusters of three to five. Vary texture and color throughout the landscape. Place taller plants toward the back or against structures, using smaller or border plants around the edges and paths. Red columbine (Aquilegia Canadensis), Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), spider lily (Hymenocallis caroliniana) and other day lilies, Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) and goat's beard (Aruncus dioicus) make excellent candidates for a cottage garden in Northern Alabama.

Knot Garden

• A formal look to a backyard landscape area comes from geometrically laid out plants such as those arranged in a knot garden. A knot garden resembles the threads of ancient Celtic knot work according to the Old Farmer's Almanac. Most knot gardens use herb plants, although plants other than herbs may be added for color or texture. Knot gardens require significant time to maintain them attractively.

  Herbs for knot gardens grow best in sunny conditions with well-drained soil. Providing some protection from the hot afternoon summer sun in Northern Alabama promotes sustained growth. Add soil amendments to promote fertility and provide good drainage. Herbs in a knot garden should maintain tight, disciplined growth in order to show the pattern of the garden. Herbs that work in a knot garden include germander, hyssop, winter savory, thyme, lavender, sage, and creeping rosemary. Consult your nurseryman to select varieties that grow successfully in Northern Alabama.

Butterfly Garden

• Attract lovely butterflies such as the black swallowtail, monarch and red-spotted purple to your Northern Alabama backyard landscape by planting flowers that provide their favorite nectars. Good plant choices to attract butterflies include butterfly weed (Asclepia tuberose), snapdragons (Antirrhinum spp), verbena (Verbenaceae), asters (Asteraceae), and varieties of heliotrope and lantana. Add some butterfly favorite herbs into the mix, such as fennel, parsley, mint and dill.