Soothe your soul in the Seaside’s charming cottage garden with its delightful colors, fragrances and textures. Our guests tell us it’s a friendly space that invites them to slow down and indulge in its beauty, while the bees and butterflies move gracefully from flower to flower. Starting at the entrance on Ocean Avenue, through the parking court, in front of each room and through an archway to the patio, flowers and handmade garden art surround the motel, adding color and whimsy.

The concept of a cottage garden was first developed during the Tudor period in England. These were designed for very practical purposes, to produce food and flowers. As food became readily available and trade increased, people had more leisure time and began to plant more flowers than vegetables, and today the term “cottage garden” evokes images of small gated-gardens overflowing with blossoms of every color and variety.
At the Seaside Motel, we strive to make our garden an intimate, personal experience, whether you want a peaceful nap or a competitive game of checkers.
The word “garden” comes from old German meaning “enclosure” which our patio garden certainly is. But according to Henry Beard’s book on gardening it is, “an outdoor restaurant operated by charity-minded amateur in an effort to provide healthful, balanced meals for insects, birds and animals.” In our case, we provide the garden for our human guests too.
From The Old House Journal the cottage garden is described as "...the real cottage garden had been idealized into a fantasy endowed with all the virtues felt to be missing from contemporary life: simplicity, purity, artfulness, and the "noble" plants of the past.”
A contemporary cottage garden is primarily flowers and completely free-form in nature. Often objets d’art are included amongst the blossoms.

When asked to describe her garden, Rebecca sighs and says enthusiastically, “I love my garden … I love working in it! It’s my therapy because it takes all my problems away. You see, I work in the garden every day: fertilizing, pruning, deadheading, and planting.  I don’t like dirt so I fill every space with flowers and whimsical art. Over the years, our customers have made or purchased precious garden art to add to a growing collection of Americana in the living environment.”

The garden is always changing depending upon the whim of the gardener, the season and what fabulous plants we can find in local nurseries. Annuals fill the garden with quick, dependable color in every imaginable hue and perennials offer an almost endless variety of color, texture, shape and size.

Just some of the plants we’ve had over the years include: Cosmos, floss flowers, glove amaranth, impatiens, periwinkles, daisies, marigold, petunia, sunflowers, zinnia, pansies, snapdragons, coneflowers,  salvia, scented geraniums, peony, sweet peas, Canterbury bells, hollyhocks, cranesbill geranium, catmint, delphinium, Japanese anemone, asters, poppies, coreopsis, yarrow, lobilia, primroses, peony, pansies and roses.

Come to the Seaside Motel. Come relax in our garden.