Cottage gardens for beginners
Cottage gardens and naturalistic planting schemes were once again very popular at the Chelsea Flower Show this year.
The easiest way to create a small cottage garden feel within your existing front or back garden is to develop a herbaceous border.
Herbaceous borders are much more rigid than they appear on initial inspection. We do not know when the first cottage gardens appeared, but their development increased greatly in the Elizabethan age.
Cottage gardens tend to be small, are usually enclosed by wall or hedge – as they are not designed for the pleasure of the passer-by – and because space is short, plants are crowded together, leaving little or no exposed earth.
Aromatic
Once aromatic flowers and culinary herbs were important and dominated the cottage garden. You do still find lavender, honeysuckle, rosemary and pinks among the borders, but it is now fashionable to go for grand colour schemes and dramatic displays.
Colour is vital. If you are planning on creating a cottage garden we recommend hollyhocks, sunflowers, gypsophila, forget-me-nots, cornflowers, alstroemeria, agapanthus, echinacea and Michaelmas daisies.
Veggies & flowers
Vegetables can be grown among the flowers – lines of beans, clusters of cabbages and onions are popular. Herbs are also important as they provide both scent and varied vegetation, not to mention their culinary uses. There should be space for soft fruits such as currants, gooseberries and raspberries too. In the past apples, pears and plums were very popular in the Cottage Garden.
Every inch of a traditional Cottage Garden has to be covered. Walls and fences must have roses or clematis covering them. Low walls should have ferns, stonecrops and wallflowers growing between the stones.
William Robinson
Nineteenth century gardener William Robinson, known as the Father of the Modern Garden, drew a lot of his inspiration from the cottage garden. In the English Flower Garden he wrote: “Those who look at sea or sky, or wood, see beauty that no art can show: but among the things made by man, nothing is prettier than an English cottage garden.”
Gertrude Jekyll
Garden designer Gertrude Jekyll was captivated by Robinson’s ideas and the memory of the cottage gardens she had seen in Surrey as a child.
Great gardens such as Sissinghurst have been inspired by the likes of Robinson and Jekyll and influenced by the lowly cottage garden.
Plants & planting
Popular plants to include are poppies, delphiniums, lupins, hardy geraniums, Michaelmas daisies, phlox and peonies.
It is traditional to use taller plants at the back of the border and smaller ones at the front. However, more recently, it has become fashionable to take one particular plant and use it as a feature in the bed. For example, it is trendy to select something scented – rosemary or lavender – which if brushed passed gives off a wonderful aroma.
Need more help?
If you need any further free advice on this topic, don’t forget to get in touch with the teams at one of our member garden centres.
Find your nearest GCA garden centre here.