Zone 6B Garden Tour: Cottage Flowers in Full Bloom

In Zone 6B, we can have such cold winters and long, dreary springs that it’s easy to wonder whether the garden we’ve been dreaming about will ever truly take shape. And then, seemingly all at once, it begins to happen. There is something so exciting and honestly, a little relieving about finally seeing years of work begin to fill in.

Plants that were small last year, suddenly are twice the size.

Shrubs that barely bloomed previously are laden with big abundant blooms.

Trees that looked well spaced from other trees are suddenly growing together.

When it comes to the flowers I grow from seeds…

The cosmos have grown 5 feet tall and are dancing above the beds.

Sweet peas have grown so thickly they are weighing down my arbors.

Zinnias are in competition with everyone and trying to be the prettiest in the garden.

Volunteer sunflowers have planted themselves everywhere and are now providing meals to birds and chipmunks.

Today, I thought I would invite you to come wander through the garden with me but to make this post even more special, I am going to show some before photos of each area so you can see just how much the garden has grown.

We’ll stop at the flowers that are putting on their best summer show, peek inside the little spaces I’ve styled for the season and of course, visit sweet Annie.

Summer never seems to stay quite long enough, and perhaps that’s what makes these days in the garden feel so precious. Come along, I cannot wait to show the progress!

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate about gardening is how easy it is to forget where we started. Once the trees grow tall and the flower beds fill in, the rocky slopes, bare soil and tiny new plants become distant memories. So as we walk through the garden today, I’m going to take you back in time every so often. Before I show you what each area looks like now, I’ll share a glimpse of where it began and some of these transformations still surprise me.

Welcome to My Zone 6B Garden in Summer

Our garden is located in Kelowna, British Columbia, on a hillside above Okanagan Lake, which helps moderate our temperatures. We can experience winter lows around -20°C (-4°F), while our hot, dry summers can reach 40°C (104°F). Our last frost is usually around the beginning of May, and we generally don’t see frost again until late October.

This year, we had a particularly warm winter and no snow. Many of my bulbs came up early and my rose bushes leafed out early and bloomed abundantly.

Now let’s take a walk through each area of my garden.

The Courtyard

This courtyard sits at the back of our home and connects several of our entrances. When we built our home, we had to blast into the hillside to create a level building site which explains the enormous amount of exposed rock you see in these early photographs. Needless to say, we have great drainage because the base is all blast rock which allows all water to drain away easily.

Here are a few before photos to show you just how raw this area was.

Here are some progress photos. Two maples have been planted and the pond is starting to take form. Each of those river rocks were gathered from our property and placed like a little puzzle into the base of the pond.

Okay, now let’s come back to today and see how the courtyard has grown.

Today, the courtyard is tucked behind a trellis thick with wisteria, an Eden climbing rose and honeysuckle. To say this is a fragrant little corner of the garden is an understatement.

On the other side of the gates is the beautiful Eden rose and off to the right are Oriental Lilies that had not yet opened at the time of this photo.

This is the first year the wisteria bloomed after transplanting it from a neighbour’s home about seven or eight years ago. So if you’re growing a wisteria that stubbornly refuses to bloom, don’t give up on it just yet. Mine certainly taught me patience! It may surprise you many years later with beautiful, fragrant cascades of flowers.

Once inside, you are greeted with a gorgeous Japanese maple that gracefully arches over your head and the stepping stones that lead to the family entrance.

Two urns filled with petunias flank the back door along with a cute doormat.

Carrying on a little further, peonies and irises that were in full bloom in the spring line the path to the main front entrance along with an extraordinarily big Hydrangea Paniculata Quick Fire. I gave it a huge trim last fall and it has sprouted up again and is about 7 feet tall.

Lining the path to the guest’s front entrance are some shorter varieties of plants including Northern Lights Tufted Hair Grass, purple Veronica, Bluebeard, Silver Heart Brunnera, Hostas and pink Hydrangea.

The focal point of our courtyard is a pond with multi-level waterfall which is surrounded in ribbon grass with an ornamental pine hanging over a large boulder.

Now let’s look back at the courtyard and remember it’s humble beginnings.

Do you know what lies beyond this rock wall? The cutting garden does!

The Cutting Garden

Today the Cutting Garden consists of six 32″ high raised garden beds and a few flower beds surrounding the yard. Let’s look at the progress.

Here is what we started with…

Literally a pile of rubble. Thank goodness Bentley had a vision and the determination to complete it.

While it may not look like it, here are photos of the same areas with some progress made.

Do not despair, we did finally get it done.

Now let’s see how this area is looking in 2026. The raised garden beds are filled to the max!

The path below is at the very back of the cutting garden and it too is filled with flowers. A few volunteer sunflowers also put on a fabulous show and will provide an abundance of food for the animals this fall.

In previous years, most of my sweet peas have been in very pale shades of blue, pink and white. This year I decided to add more colour, and am I ever happy I did. Masses of blue, purple and pink sweet peas have been absolutely heavenly.

Now let’s take a look from above at this sea of sweet peas.

One of my favorite dahlias is this ball dahlia called Peaches and Cream. I love how the petals fold back to create the perfect round sphere.

And what garden is complete without a potting bench? This sweet potting bench was one Bentley originally made as a gift for my mom. After she passed away, it eventually came back to me, and now it has found a home here in the cutting garden.

It was fun to style it up with these beautiful Rosemary topiaries, a few pots, a trug filled with freshly picked flowers, a garden apron and hat and of course necessary garden tools.

Something I love to put in every garden is a mirror. Not to look at myself, but rather to capture the reflections and give a feeling of the garden extending on and on.

The Hillside Garden

Before I share what is growing here, could I show you a before photo?

Scary, right?

This steep hillside was covered with rock left behind from blasting, and eventually we simply couldn’t justify the cost of hauling any more of it away. As it turned out, that was a blessing in disguise. We ended up using every one of those rocks to create the tiered garden you see today.

Bentley painstakingly placed every boulder and then we used an electric wheelbarrow to transport soil into the new planters. It was not an easy job at all, but boy was it worth it.

Below is a photo of Bentley starting to carve some sense into the hillside and show the beginnings of flower beds being constructed.

Look how it finally came together! Lavender, hydrangea trees and shrubs, roses, lilacs, blacklace, two maples, a nectarine tree and a plum tree fill in the planters.

Let’s hop forward in time to 2026 to when the flowers, trees and shrubs have matured.

The lavender flourished this year along with a climbing Eden rose, ornamental grasses and even our fruit trees (nectarine and plum) had bumper crops!

The round raised garden bed was filled in with volunteer sunflowers, self seeding Prairie Sun Rudbeckia, zinnias and dahlias grown from seed. Sweet peas are slowly making their way up the obelisks.

This is an area I like to come to and ponder life, read a book, or get inspired to paint. As such I have set up a bistro table for year round use. Today, I thought it would be fun to style it with soft pillows, a sheer table cloth with pink flowers embroidered on it and vases filled with fresh picked flowers from the garden.

Here’s a closer look at the bouquets of flowers.

I’ve learned that a garden becomes even more special when we create places within it to actually stop and enjoy it.

One of my favorite additions to the garden this year, are the Pro White Sunflowers. Aren’t they the sweetest!

Annie and Her Garden

Oh what a mess this area started off as. It’s almost painful looking back at this area and thinking about all the hours of work it took to get it where it is today.

But here she is seven years later with a sweet picket fence to keep the local wildlife out.

This year, from mid-July straight through to the end of August, we were surrounded by wildfire smoke. My flowers didn’t perform quite as well as they have in other years, but Annie and her garden were still a beautiful place to spend time.

The zinnias did well despite the smoke as did some pails of flowers.

Here’s an angle I don’t usually show but here it is looking up from below at the garden.

Believe it or not, I found these beautiful hanging baskets at Home Depot and they have been one of my best buys this summer.

This is a new rose I planted to mark Mia’s grave. This area of the garden was her favourite, and she would often come out and simply lie among the flowers, taking in the world around her. I miss her so much.

My Cafe au Lait dahlia has taken on a more pinky tone this year and it is doing very well.

Look how big this lavender is! Due to having so many deer in the area, I have to be very careful with what I plant outside of the fenced area. I’ve found that the deer and marmots around our property leave lavender alone, so it has become one of my go-to plants for higher-risk areas outside fenced areas.

With lavender comes a bounty of a lavender harvest. I look forward to making many different things with lavender this fall.

No matter how many things change in the garden from year to year, Annie remains at the heart of it.

A Quiet Moment in the Garden

Gardens have a wonderful way of reminding us that very little happens all at once. We plant something small, tend it faithfully and sometimes wonder whether much is happening at all. Then one summer morning we look around and realize that, quietly, the garden has become full.

As I look back through these photographs, I’m reminded how quickly a garden changes. The flowers filling these beds today will eventually fade, the evenings will grow cooler and another season will begin. But perhaps that is part of what makes a summer garden so special—we know it won’t look exactly this way again.

For now, I’m going to keep cutting bouquets, deadheading the zinnias, gathering lavender, wandering out to Annie with an armful of flowers and occasionally remembering to sit down at that little bistro table and simply enjoy it all.

Thank you

I hope this tour of my Zone 6B garden has given you a little inspiration for your own outdoor spaces, whether you tend acres of flowers, a small backyard garden or a few treasured pots on a balcony.

More than anything, I hope it has encouraged you to pause and notice whatever is blooming where you are.

Beauty doesn’t have to be grand to lift our spirits. Sometimes all it takes is one flower, one quiet corner and a few minutes to truly see it.