BEST 15 Plants That Make Any Garden Look Designed!

Ready to design your dream garden? I’m sharing 15 of my favorite tried-and-true plants that instantly give your garden that “professionally designed” look. Whether you love a European cottage garden, a classic formal garden, or something simple and elegant, these plants create the perfect bones and structure for any outdoor space and give any space a timeless cottage or European-style charm! 🌸 SHOP my Favorite Finds: https://michelleshomeandgarden.com/

✉️Business Inquiries: Michelleshomeandgarden@gmail.com

🪴 Shop My Favorite Finds:
Visit my curated collection of garden and home finds: https://michelleshomeandgarden.com/

✨ In this video you’ll discover:
💚 plants that build the structure and soul of a beautiful garden — elegant evergreens, lush hydrangeas, romantic roses, and the perennials that make every corner feel magical. Whether you’re starting from scratch or refreshing your current garden, these ideas will help you design a space that looks curated, classic, and cohesive all year long.
🌿 My go-to evergreens and foundation plants for structure
🌸 The hydrangeas and roses that add charm and color
🌿 Perennials I plant again and again for effortless beauty
If I were starting a new garden today, these are the exact plants I’d choose — and you’ll see why they work together beautifully.
💚 If you love garden design, timeless plant combinations, and classic beauty — you’ll love this one.

Thanks for watching, subscribing, liking, and sharing! 😊💖

#gardendesign #cottagegarden #gardenideas #gardeninspiration

📌 Chapters:
00:00 – The 15 Timeless Plants That Make Any Garden Look Designed!
00:51 – My Top 4 Big and Small Green Structure Plants- the bones of the garden
04:14 – My top 4 Hydrangeas different sizes that I would take to a new garden
08:24 – My Top 4 Roses that I would plant again if I started over- great for structure of the garden and for bouquets!
12:43 – My Top 3 Perennials I’d Plant Again that play well with the all the other picks that are a great start to a new garden!
_____________________________

https://www.instagram.com/michelleshomeandgarden/
____________
Welcome to my Home and Garden, where I take the ordinary and transform it into a charming oasis with Chic style! We are creating beautiful spaces indoors and out to enjoy, by Home Decorating, Gardening, Thrifting, Shopping, DIY, Styling, and Makeovers!
Join me as we learn and create new and inspiring ideas together for our homes and gardens.

FREE Garden Checklist: https://michelleshomeandgarden.myflodesk.com/michellesgardenshoppingchecklist
This has all of my favorites that have done well in the garden, from annuals to roses to thrifted and new decor, it has all my top picks for you! Happy Garden Shopping!

Hi, I’m Michelle. Welcome to Illinois and Garden Zone 5. We are in midocctober and we are talking about garden today. So, are you wanting to plant a new garden next year? Are you in the middle of moving and need a beautiful new garden space and you’re not really even sure where to begin? What plant should you buy if you want that cottage romantic or that French European feeling garden? Well, I am going to give you my top picks that if I were to move, these would be my top choices of planting first in my new garden. So, these are the things that have done the best for me and that really are the bones and the structure of the garden and make the garden what it is. So, are you curious about those choices? Well, come on, let’s go check it out. anchor plants that I think any garden needs is arborvites. Now arborvites, there’s emerald green arborites, there’s green giant arborvites, there’s different types of arborites and maybe in your area you can’t grow arborvites, but something green and tall that’s going to give you a backdrop for your plants. Going to give you more of that secret garden feel, that closed in feel. makes a really good statement. You can put two or three of them together in a clump if you don’t want to do a row of them. You can set them in different areas. And here in Illinois in the wintertime with snow, they look gorgeous with snow on it. So, that would be one thing that I would definitely plant again if I was starting over on a garden. Boxwoods. Definitely I would put boxwoods again. Now, I have the boxwood uh circle here for the fountain. That’s really the focal point of my garden, but I also have boxwoods throughout my garden. Now, boxwood you can shape or you can just leave them in their natural like I have. Boxwood will give you that formal feel to your garden. Also, that yearround interest since they stay green um all winter long. Gives you something to look at. They’re very pretty with the snow on them also. um just love to have boxwoods in the garden. So, what are two other plants that I would put in my garden? And they’re not really plants, they’re shrubs. I would put the magnolia definitely. I have three of those here in the garden. They get 10 to 12 feet tall. And that is a Jane magnolia. And a Jane magnolia is actually a shrub, but I have trained it into a tree shape just by trimming off the bottom branches. I think it’s an excellent tree for a garden space because it gives you that tree without that overpowering sides. And I have green interest all summer long and all spring and fall. And in the winter time then, of course, the leaves do drop off of it, but I have all those branches and the birds love to come and land on those branches. It gives the birds a nice spot to land. Another one that I would put in a garden again is a lilac, which is right next to the Jane Magnolia. Now, that lilac is an old-fashioned lilock. I’m not sure I would put an oldfashioned lilock back into a garden, but I would pick out one that’s very, very scented and that gets to probably around 10 foot tall. I think 10 feet is a good size shrub privacy. You could even do a whole line of those if you wanted in your garden for privacy. Again, it gives you green all summer, spring, fall, and then in the winter, it does lose its leaves, but lots and lots of branches and lots of bird activity. Those birds love having that tall shrub to land in uh throughout the winter season and gives the garden some more green texture to it. So, those are the four main uh green type things that I would put in that would be more like the bones of the garden. So, those are going to be your bigger things that are going to take up space that you got to really plan out like where do you want those at? So, if you love hydrangeas like I do, they are perfect for a cottage formal type garden. You can use them in bouques, in fresh bouques. You can dry them and put them in dried arrangements, make wreaths out of them. They look gorgeous all summer long. Um, you can leave the flower heads on them through the winter to give you winter interest in in the garden, the dried flower flowerheads. Pollinators love them. Some of them are even deer resistant. So, some of the ones I have in my garden that I would definitely take with me or replant again. So, our first hydrangea is Fire Light Tidbit. Now, this is the smallest of the bunch. It gets two to three foot tall. Now, it’s already done for this season. You can see by the dried flowerheads, but look how many flowerheads uh that has on it. And they start out a real pretty white and then change colors as the season goes on. This can also go into a container because it is a zone three to a zone 9. So, here in zone five, we could put this in a container and over winter it in a pretty container, too. So the second hydrangea I would want to plant again is little quickfire. Little quickfire gets three to five foot tall. So good in that medium type space and it has beautiful fuettes all over it. Now these are finished for the season here in October. They are brown but they would make a gorgeous arrangement. And you can see down in here we’ve got some pinky raspberry left there on a few of the fuettes. But it’s just really nice nice leaf structure and then just full of blooms all summer long. And those start out white and turn to a light pink and then go to the raspberry and then when once they dry they do have that brown color. Now, I could leave this all winter long like this and not the not cut the blooms off until springtime just to have winter interest. And this is also good from zone 3 to eight. So that white diamonds now white diamonds starts out totally white, goes to a pink color, then to that raspberry color. Yesterday when I was out working in the garden, the sun was shining on this and oh my gosh, it just was a gorgeous toffee color brown. So these would make a real pretty dried arrangement, too. Same thing though, we can leave them on the plant and just have them all winter long for winter interest. So then the fourth hydrangea is the biggest of all. It gets 6 to 8 foot tall and makes a beautiful uh privacy border if you need privacy. You can also do them as a standalone specimen and just have one big beautiful uh hydrangea. And this is quickfire fab. I have three of them here lining my pathway to the backyard garden from the cut flower garden that we’re in. And this is next to the garden shed, the garden house. So, as these grow up and fill in, I’ll have some really gorgeous blooms to look at from inside of the garden shed out. And also, it’ll make a nice privacy here along our fence, too. So, can’t wait for those to grow in more. I cut a ton of these this year and had them in bouques all over outside. These are just a wonderful addition to a garden and I definitely would take those to the next house with me. Well, maybe not take them. I would probably have to buy some more, but you know what I mean. So, I’ve shared with you four green type plants that we’re going to use as our structure plants that are really the bones of the garden. And now, four beautiful panacle hydrangeas. All in different sizes depending on the size you need in your garden. Now, let’s talk about roses. Now, there are all kinds of roses you can grow. There’s miniatures, there’s English garden roses, there’s hybrid tees, flora bundas, grand florals, climbing. So, we’re not going to go over all of those different categories. So, I just walked through the garden yesterday and I picked out my top four. What would be the four that if I moved to a new area, I would have to plant again. So, those are the four that I’m going to share with you today. So the first one that we would plant again that I would plant again is all dressed up now. All dressed up. This is its second year. But look how big she is. She is gorgeous and she is pink. We have a beautiful one over here that’s about midsize. So look how pretty that is. And then do you notice the foliage? The foliage is very very nice. It is not bugate. It holds up really well. It’s got pretty color on it. So definitely all dressed up. I would plant her again. Pope John Paul II. That creamy white. Absolutely gorgeous. So this is Pope John Paul’s second year, too. But just beautiful blooms. Lots and lots. I already cut a bouquet and I have a bouquet next to my kitchen sink of about five of these. So definitely grow Pope John Paul again and it’s just a per prolific bloomer. Now I haven’t been spraying them this late in the season so they are they are kind of buggy. Um but again look at this foliage. That should tell you something. The foliage out here on this is just gorgeous. So, it’s just held up so well and very disease resistant. So, those are two in the cut flower garden that I would definitely plant again. Okay, as we came through to the back garden over here, tucked over by the mirror is a rose that I actually ordered a few years ago on Etsy. And I’ve seen it on Heirloom Roses. And it’s the only place I’ve seen it available. There may be others, but I know that Heirloom Roses carries it. And it’s this gorgeous rose right here. This is Paris Eve Sant Laurent. Look at that color. Just gorgeous. And it looks like we have a couple over here that are still in bloom. So now this is a hybrid tea. Very, very fragrant and it makes beautiful cut flowers and bouques. And you can see how tall it gets. It’s easily six foot tall. So, this is one that I definitely would grow again. Very, very nice rose. And even with the dappled shade that it gets having the magnolia and the lilac right there, it still does really well, really well. Um, and I bet it would even be more prolific if I had it in full sun. Sitting pretty. But this is a beautiful fragrant grand floral. And it’s massive. And I did just trim all of these up yesterday because they were so big. The smell on them. And when the sun hits them, the smell is just unbelievable. They make a beautiful, beautiful cut flower. This is an excellent rose. It smells so good. And even with the downside of the powdery mildew, I would still plant these again. But now that I know that that I would plant these farther out in the garden where you can see them from the garden, but they’re not real close. I would definitely plant these again. They’re gorgeous, and the smell is wonderful. Okay, now we’re going to talk about prenials that I definitely would grow again and that play really well with the roses, the hydrangeas, and those greeneries that we talked about, the boxwoods, the arbor vites, the trees, all of that pairs really good together. This luminary flocks from Proven Winners. Gorgeous. It comes in different colors. I very highly scented. During the summer, the pollinators and the bees were all over that and just walking through the back garden. You could smell it. It smelt wonderful. It looks really good in arrangements and so much so that I bought another one this year and planted it on the other side of the garden shed so that I would have another area to cut from. So, that would be one of them. Flocks. Now, the next one would be salvia. I grow tons of salvia. I have all kinds of salvia, but one of the prenial salvas that I would definitely grow again is Proven Winners um by Salvia. It’s got that lavender, purple, and white all mixed in and the bees were all over that this summer. They just loved it. So, that’s one that I really like. Another pennial that I definitely grow again is lavender. I love lavender. Um, I have several different kinds of prenial lavender that I try out in the garden and um, I had showed you some earlier this season that just had bees all over. It was just beautiful. Now, along the south side of our house, outside of the garden, that whole foundation planting is all lavender. I’ve planted it all in the rocks alongside of the house because it’s so sunny and I don’t water it. It’s lavender is so drought tolerant. So, if you’re looking for something that can handle not being watered all the time, lavender would be it. It smells wonderful. And you can cut those flowers and put them in your bouquet. Very pretty. If you’re starting a new garden next year, those are some plants that you can intersperse throughout your garden to give you not only beautiful garden color, but also beautiful bouques, because you got to have beautiful bouques to go with your garden. Well, I hope that information was helpful. Have a great week. And if you are looking for more inspiration, check out these videos next.