Garden Design with Seedlings Designing 🌱

Welcome back to The Cottage on the Hill for a brand-new series I’m calling Designing My Day — where we check in, share our to-do lists, and make every day more intentional. Today, I’m bringing you along for a cozy, productive day with a little bit of morning routine motivation, gardening inspiration, and holiday decorating prep!

⭐ In this episode:
• Morning meditation on the rowing machine 🚣‍♀️
• How to design your day with simple productive habits
• Transplanting golden feverfew seedlings for a beautiful spring garden
• Why seedling identification is a gardener’s superpower 🌱
• Preparing for tulip season & cottage-style borders 🌷
• A look at what came home (…or didn’t!) from the Oklahoma City estate sale
• Refurbishing outdoor Christmas wreaths for an early start on holiday decorating 🎄

I love days like this where I’m not working and can slow down to enjoy the home and garden. It’s amazing what we can accomplish one intentional task at a time.

What are YOU designing into your day? Tell me in the comments! 💬

⬇️ More Cottage Inspiration & Seasonal Gardening Tips
• Gardening through fall and winter
• Planting tulips and bulbs for spring bloom
• Transplanting and designing garden edges
• DIY holiday décor and outdoor wreath updates

🌿 Chapters: (add after upload)
00:00 Designing My Day Intro
…(I can timestamp this for you once uploaded)

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Linda Vater — The Garden Life | Cottage Style Living in Oklahoma City

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Oh Lord help us. We’re doing a little something today and HubS is behind the camera. So he’s going to take a little recording of me talking about something that I want to start doing. I don’t know if I’ll be reliable about it or not, but something that I’m calling designing the day of how we design our days and what things we like to get accomplished in the course of the day. And I’m gonna try to do this on kind of a regular installment basis because I think we have so much in common about the things that are on our to-do lists. So, uh, after this intro, I am going to just take over the camera myself and I’m going to describe a little bit about some things that I’m doing. Hubs may or may not come back in and watch me do those things. Uh, Stuart is taking a break today. So, I just thought it would be kind of fun for us to check in with one another. So, how are you designing your day? This morning I got up and rather than wait like I usually do to get on the rowing skull and you know normally I like to just kind of have my coffee and such. Today I tried to be a little bit more intentional about it and I after I got up I had my cup of coffee, went in and sat with hubs for a little while and then I just decided I wanted to go ahead and get that out of the way which I’m going to try to do in the future. And so I had my cup of coffee, made my electrolyte water, and then I just I just got on my rowing machine. And today, and what I’ve done a couple of times is I’m actually meditating while I do my rowing. So, for the first 15 minutes, I close my eyes. I put in my earpods. I put on um just one of the virtual settings, the virtual rowing tours, and close my eyes, listen to my happier app, and do my meditation. And that worked out for me pretty well this morning. And then I after I finished the meditation, I just did some more um some more power rowing on my own. But that worked out pretty well for me. and it was a good start to the day. So, now it’s time to get on with it. Well, I’ve got projects that I want to get done inside, but as always at the cottage, there’s always a few gardening projects that I want to get done. And today, what I am doing since the weather is very, very cloudy and we’ve had lots of rain, it’s the perfect condition to start transplanting some of these golden feverfuse seedlings. So, here’s my strategy for that. I am going to place them nearby everywhere I have some of this Golden Joseph’s coat because I really like the way it looks running up and down the sidewalk going up to the front steps. So, pretty much everywhere right next to the Joseph’s coat, I’m going to plant some of those little seedlings. So, they will grow up and get big by the time the tulips bloom. That way, when I pull out the Joseph’s coat, they will already be in place and starting to put on some maturity. I’ll do it on both sides. So, this won’t take any time at all. I could practically do it literally with a spoon or a fork. And that just might be my implement of choice for this tiny little garden job. And thinking about how things are going to look next spring, not just right now. While Hubs is out here messing with the music, which we unfortunately can’t share with you because we’ll get a music strike, I’m going to show you the progress that I’ve made on what I’m thinking of as designed by seedlings. So, you can see all of the divots in the wet earth from where I took out a lot of those seedlings. And by the way, it’s one of the reasons I think that the skill of seedling identification is so important because when you can identify them, then you can put them into place like I’ve done here in areas where you really want them to grow, not in areas where they have decided to grow. Now, you might say, “Well, Linda, why didn’t you just seed them in those locations to begin with?” and I did, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will germinate cooperatively in the designated areas where I want them to grow. The other reason is sometimes like these thuggish plants which are beautifully thuggish right now. Um they will kind of inhibit germination of whatever seeds I put in place. So this way I can very intentionally now and when I’m planting my tulips, I can imagine the effect that I want to create where they are positioned relative to things like these boxwood, these better boxwood, but also where they will be relative to where I will be planting the tulips. And where I will be planting the tulips is pretty much up and down this edge. And you might think that there’s just not any room there whatsoever in which to plant the tulips. But again, a lot of the floral beauty you see right here is going to go away. The pentas, the Joseph’s coat, none of that will be here. And even the perennials won’t be of the same size. So when I begin to plant my tulips, then I will already have designated areas where I can imagine that these frilly fluffy heads of ferny golden feverfew will be because it is their combination together that is so effective. And in case you’re wondering what it looks like in its mature state, you can see some toughs of it that have grown along the edge here. There’s some right there. There’s another mound right there. And in this case, it did decide to germinate where I seeded it. But I want it not only along the border. And by the way, I am positioning and transplanting most of the seedlings along the edges because I think that’s where it looks most beautiful is along the edges, but I’m not only transplanting it in areas like this. And by the way, most of the time I will transplant several seedlings in clumps. Like right there, I took three seedlings because they’ll all grow together more quickly into one large clump. I put another larger seedling right there next to that purple dome basil or purple ball basil. And remember, it won’t be there either. And here you can see some more of that characteristic very, very vibrant chartreuse color. Now, the reason I want to transplant them over here is now I know the ideal spot where they will germinate, but I really don’t want them all clustered in the middle here in between these stepping stones because that is where I walk after all. So, I can steal from this area as many as I like to position into other areas where I want them to grow. Not now. Not now necessarily, but next spring. Also along the upper terrace on the west side, I want them to grow right behind that brick border. But obviously, right now, all of that butterfly candy is just kind of cascading over them. Again, those will not have any leafy foliage or will not be of substantial size when the tulips are in bloom. So, I will be pricking out with my little fork. I’ll be pricking out more of those seedlings and positioning them in other desired areas. Now, another spot where I have found that I can get them to germinate very, very quickly, I’ve told you this many times before, but now I can show you the example is in this pot of topiary right here. I don’t recall planting these cleomi seeds, but they decided to grow here. But you can also see some larger clumps of that golden fever few in here. And there is a start of a fox glove that will also be repositioned. But I’ll probably wait till most till after the first frost and most of the annuals I’ve pulled out so I have a better idea of where the bare spaces will be for not the first arrival of spring bloom which is the tulips and the bulbs etc but the second kind of iteration of spring bloom which for me is the fox glove and eventually the lark spur and things of that nature. So, it is definitely um seedling by design, I guess. And a reason that I think it’s so important for us to recognize recognize seedlings when they first they first become noticeable. And something else along those same lines, and then we’ll go inside. You’ll notice all of my boxwood basil here. It’s in flour now. And typically I cut those flowers off because I want them to stay in a pretty defined ball shape, but not anymore because we are probably no two 3 weeks away from our first frost. Let them go to seed. And I have found that when they go to seed, then in the spring, even though they’re not frost tolerant, if they have enough protection, I’ll see all sorts of boxwood basil seedlings that will come up in here. And consequently, it’s important that I am able to recognize them so I don’t think they’re weeds. Um, and I can then also intentionally transplant them into other areas. I truly love days like today where I have the luxury of being able to design my day because I’m not working and I just don’t have any any major obligations. So, something I did yesterday was excavate all of my wreaths, my Christmas wreaths out of the garage. I keep them in these wonderful zip totes. But what I’m going to do is I’m going to replace and fix, refurbish all of the bows on them because they’ve been on there for years and a lot of them have well they have gotten bleached out. um they’re torn, they’re wind abused, and so I’ve got more of them uh that more ribbon that I can make new ones or I can replace the hangers that have um the grommets in them. And I’m going to do that now. and also check all of the lights to make sure that they are working because when I’m ready to decorate for Christmas, I don’t do that until after Thanksgiving. Typically, I am ready to rock and roll onto the next season. Even though Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, um I really want to make sure that my Christmas decorations are up long enough for me to enjoy them. And that means some of them, particularly my outdoor breeze, they get up in time for me and all passers by to enjoy them. So, that’s another thing that I’ve got going today. I can do that in front of an old movie tonight and that’ll be nice. Well, in case you’re wondering what I came home with from the estate sale, let me first give you kind of a um a rendition of what I ended up doing. So, I was there the first day and I shot a bunch of things and I was just kind of overwhelmed after shooting and visiting with so many people. So, I thought, oh, I’ll just come back later after the prices are reduced. And so, this morning, which is Sunday, I went back. And let me tell you, there was absolutely nothing left. Very, very few things that were left. And if you guys if you guys watched that, you you you saw how many things there were, how much stuff there was. But I didn’t come away I may have come away empty-handed, but I didn’t come away empty-headed because I in looking at all of those things, I realized how much stuff I already have. and I remembered things that I’ve forgotten that I’ve got stashed away here in my entertaining closet or down in the basement. And I really didn’t need anything else. But it was fun to see the beautiful things. And also it was fun to give me kind of a little a tickle, if you will, about what things that I already have that I can style in a certain way before the holidays. And it was just it was so fun to see so many different people. I saw lots of followers and old friends. Well, it was a joy and it was just good for me to get out because I don’t do those kinds of things. Hadn’t been to an estate sale or really very few estate sales in my past, but now I know I know what it’s all about and what goodies they have and I know how to strategize. um easier to strategize when you don’t really need anything than when you may be filling an empty house and you may just be starting out in adulthood and you need things to entertain with. But uh nevertheless, it was a great experience and boy were there beautiful things. So many of you were curious as to what John Turman brought home and he messaged me later in the afternoon and told me that he he actually came away with with not a whole lot of things too. I think he was a perhaps a little bit overwhelmed and he was shopping I think mostly for clients. Um he did tell me that those sugar pine cones, those $4 sugar pine cones that I pointed out, I think he snapped all of those up. Uh, I have enough of those already. So, I I didn’t feel compelled to get any more. And he also got some blue glass things. And if I can find the picture he sent me, we’ll post it right here. So, there you go. This was just designing my day, what the things that I had to do indoors and out. And also a little bit of garden design work and design by seedlings. So, that’s what’s going on here at the cottage. A little bit of forward thinking to the next seasonal uh chores that I’ve got on my plate. A little bit about designing with seedlings and an update on the estate sale. My big question for you is, how did you design your day and what did you get accomplished? See you tomorrow. [Music]