by Debbie Bosworth of Dandelion House
Okay, so you’ve taken the plunge into backyard chicken keeping and your girls are ( hopefully ) nice and comfortable in their new Poulet’ Chalet! That’s fancy French talk for chicken coop! Or, maybe you’ve had your coop situated for a while now and would like it to blend in more beautifully with the rest of your garden scape. Which ever the case may be, surrounding your coop with old fashioned cottage flowers is one of the easiest and quickest ways I know to make your coop look as if it’s been a part of your landscape right along.
After all, your girls work hard to give you fresh eggs every day. Why not give them ( and yourself ) something pretty to look at while they’re out hunting and pecking?
Before you rush out and purchase flowers you’ll want to take into account the size of the garden space surrounding your coop and your planting zone. Visit your local garden center for recommendations on flowers and flowering shrubs that thrive in your area or better yet, visit a friend or neighbors garden whom you admire.
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| Mid -summer 2013 |
The planting area in front of our coop is roughly 3 feet by 7 feet with just enough space for a handful of common cottage flowers such as Black-eyed Susan, Day-lilies, Hollyhocks and Tall Phlox. Because I also grow black-eyed Susan and hydrangea shrubs in adjacent gardens I’ve added one of each to the coop garden to visually connect the gardens.
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| Endless Summer Hydrangea, Black-eyed Susan and Day-lily |
What could be more old fashioned than hollyhocks?
The common hollyhock (A. rosea) is a biennial and only flowers the second year. First-year plants produce mounds of foliage and perhaps a flower or two, often confusing novice gardeners who wonder where their flowers are. After the leaves die to the ground in winter, the hollyhock bounces back in spring with mounds of new, broadly scalloped leaves and tall spikes of 4- to 5-inch flowers which may tower up to 8 feet above the garden border.
Not to mention the swarms of honey bees they attract to the garden. I recommend buying your hollyhocks in a gallon sized container and planting it in the late spring for best results. Give it the first season to get established and the second one to put on the show of a lifetime! Once it has died to the ground in the second year you can dig it up and make room for a replacement hollyhock or choose a different flower altogether.
Daylilies come in numerous shades all the way from white to the softest peach and bolder shades of orange and red which make them a great choice for a cottage garden.
Black-eyed Susan is another Cottage Garden favorite.
Climbing vines and roses are a must for a touch of Cottage Garden romance.We’ve had great success with Morning Glories.
In the spring of 2012 I planted one large packet of Botanical Interest Morning Glory,
Something Old Something New all around the coop in hopes of seeing a beautiful water fall of blue, purple and white blossoms cascading over the coop and clambering up the chicken wire fencing come fall.
And, they did not disappoint!
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| October 2012 |
In fact, they were the perfect finale to a bountiful season of classic Cottage COOP blooms!
Always try to make sure that what you are planting around your chicken coop is safe for chickens to eat. It never occured to me that Morning Glories might be poisonous to chickens but after I planted them in the coop garden I found an article that said they WERE poisonous to chickens if ingested. Naturally my heart skipped a beat when I read that so I went looking for more information and found additional articles stating that Morning Glories were NOT poisonous to chickens. I wasn’t sure if I should pull them out or leave them so I decided to chance it and watch the girls closely as the Morning Glories grew.
Here’s what my chickens have taught me over the years.Chickens are natural born foragers. They instinctively know what to eat and what not to eat. A little common sense goes a long way with keeping chickens. And, as you can see by the photos, they paid no mind to the Morning Glories at all! Thank goodness!
Spring is within our grasp and there’s no better time than now to begin planning YOUR Cottage Coop Garden!
Tell us about your coop garden in the comments section… Bragging welcome!
Until next time,
Deb and The Cottage Hens
18 Comments
Read what you said about morning glories. My one year olds ate a lot of spent flowers end of last summer, loved them. Now April, 3 of them have ascites aka water belly known to be caused by liver disease. Wonder if morning glories are toxic to chickens and is this a result?! The liver is a filter of poisons I believe. Anxious to hear your impressions, ideas. Thanks.
Hi Deb
You mentioned hollyhocks in context of keeping chickens. Hollyhocks produce seeds that dry naturally on the stem. They’re easy to collect. I’ve been wondering if they’d make a nice winter treat for the chickens
Lance Olsen
I am looking forward to planting around my coop, all this is great info. My chickens will not be free range either. Hubbies lawn is to treated(nuclar lawn) my son calls it LOL. looking forward to some sun so all this snow melts
I have the same difficulty with my foraging chickens – dirt and holes everywhere. The only solution I’ve come up with is to lay down the cheap plastic fencing on the ground, staking it securely and then plant through it. Hope this helps. If anyone else has suggestions, would be appreciated.
My foraging girls dig up everything. How do you keep them from digging up all your beautiful flowers? They take dust bathes and have holes everywhere. I planted several bulbs and flowers last year and very little survived!
Hi there, How did I forget to mention that my girls are not free ranging?They have a rather large run where they have plenty of space to dig holes, take dust baths and scratch and peck! My flowers are safe on the outside of the coop and run… However, any climbing vines I plant they can get to through the chicken wire run fencing. Hope this helps?
Make sure you choose plants and bushes that chickens don’t like to eat! I had a beautiful perennial garden and they pecked everything right down the roots (hosta, some little purple flower among others) – they left daylilies alone, as well as azealas and rhododendrons. Watch out for poisonous plants as well. Here’s a great page: https://www.timberpress.com/blog/2012/01/free-range-chicken-gardens-chicken-resistant-plants/
Yes, of course! Thank you for the link…My girls don’t free range but I’ve loved the recent books and articles of late that feature safe plants for chickens that do! Good stuff!!!
My girls would eat anything that wasn’t barricaded behind hardware cloth!
Scarlet Runners beans add a nice touch, provide shade, the Hummers love them and they are edible to boot.
Peace and Abundance Grammy
I’ve found hydrangea to be a great addition to my yard in the areas near & far from the coop. They don’t bother pecking at the leaves & flowers and love to hide out/nap under their thick cover during the height of a hot day. Oddly, they left alone one type of hostas yet attacked a different variety – this summer I will observe more closely to see if there were bugs or water droplets on the desirable hostas that weren’t on the untouched ones. Thanks for the inspiration, Debbie!
Hollyhocks are my favorite flower ever – but I have such a hard time keeping them alive here. Beautiful photos and inspiration, thank you!!
Thank you, Carol! They are on of my favorites too. Good luck with your gardening this year!
Visit this link for more info on growing hollyhocks. http://www.gardeningcentral.org/planting_hollyhocks/planting_hollyhocks.html
Hello Hillside Happy Hens! I know how gardening in tough soil can be. You might consider a few narrow raised beds near your coops or container gardens for your flowers. Zinnias, cosmos, and sunflowers all do very well when sewn after the danger of the first frost. You can make container gardens out of just about anything that will hold dirt! Enjoy and have fun planting your coop garden!
I am hoping to plant some cheap, easy to grow flowers around some of our coops this year. We have GA red clay/dirt to work with and a limited budget. However, some friends have given me flower seeds and I shall be starting them very soon indoors. Your flowers are simply beautiful and I sure hope I can follow your example. I also like the fact that the seed you have used will not break the bank! Thanks for sharing.
Great article Deb! Thanks for all the good advice I am motivated to plant around my coop this year. And all my favorites!
Thank you Brenda! Have fun with it!
You have some great ideas. Just a nice FYI… your girls have asked me if you would please change Poulet to Poule. Poulet refers to them as chicken on a plate and it ruffles their feathers a bit.