Cottage Garden Style

I recently held a presentation on cottage gardens. If I had to pick a style that most closely resembles my gardening philosophy, this would be the one. Cottage gardens are typically defined by informal design with use of perennials, reseeding annuals, roses, vines, herbs, & edibles, with emphasis on profuse bloom & fragrance.

History
 

 

Anne Hathaway's cottage, Stratford-Upon-Avon, U.K. Courtesy Wikipedia Commons

Cottage gardens began in England during Elizabethan times, but were popularized in the late 19^th century as a design trend.

Traditionally, working-class people lived in cottages--modest & humble dwellings--and provided much of their own produce, livestock, and medicinal herbs in their own small gardens. Early cottage gardens were geared towards the practical, but over time they came to represent an informal, full-flowered style. 

Classic cottage flowers include Pansies, Bachelor's buttons, Dianthus, Sweet rocket, and Catchfly

Flowers grown in cottage gardens were for filling in and most likely selected for ease of cultivation and usefulness (medicinal, strewing, tea, or cooking). Self-seeding annuals like calendula, violets, & chamomile were for herbal use, and stocks, mignonette, poppies, larkspur, cornflowers, and cosmos for fragrance and beauty. 
Cottagers most likely had no time to tend ornamental gardens, so the selections had to be hardy and low-maintenance.  

Knautia macedonica and Centaurea cyanus give long-lasting, easy color.

Today, cottage garden style has come to mean a romantic, informal mass of wide borders overflowing with colorful and fragrant blossoms, meandering stone paths, and whimsical touches throughout.  
 

Artemisia, Star Jasmine, Hydrangea 'Penny Mac', et al. mingle together in a rustic border.

A painterly approach to design is often employed, planting similarly-colored groups of plants in swathes, often surrounding and highlighting larger-flowered plants like peonies or roses.

A cottage garden can be whatever you’d like, but a perfectly formal, clean & sculpted space won’t look as right as one that’s a tad overgrown or artfully shabby. 

Annual Dahlias, Nemesia, Sweet alyssum, Pansies, and Nasturtium.

Basic Design Recipe for Four Seasons of Interest 

Start with foundation plantings of trees, shrubs, and evergreen perennials. These are the bones of the garden, and provide structure throughout the year. 

Add bulbs for early-season interest. Really pack in hardy spring bloomers like daffodils, tulips, anemone, crocus, snowdrops, hyacinth, and ranunculus. These will provide bursts of color that will usher in the season. 

A brand-new border planting in late winter. Definitely needs more bulbs. Lots more.

 
Then plant perennials, being mindful of bloom times. Early bloomers like delphiniums, columbine, lupine, and veronica will provide color into early summer, followed by the later flowers of plants like echinacea, sneezeweed, black-eyed susans, and asters. 

Plant groups of fillers (small-flowered & foliage plants, such as campanulas, hardy geraniums, dianthus, or silene) around “feature plants” (larger flowers, like roses or dahlias, or shrubbery). These will act as colorful groundcovers, hiding leggy rose stems or shading the roots of clematis. 

Same garden in early June. The bulbs and early perennials are done blooming. Needs some orange in the front...

Then plant annuals at will, remembering to leave some space space for reseeding. Annuals are invaluable for color all summer!

And always leave room for edibles. Rainbow-colored Swiss chard, frilly kale, and fancy lettuces blend easily into ornamental plantings, but so do peppers, tomatoes, or a rambling squash vine.

The garden in July. The later bloomers like Helenium & Echinacea are doing their thing, as annuals & veggies have filled in.

Ideas for Planting Schemes
Dooryard and Entryways

Plant wide borders of evergreens & flowers on either side of the path to your front door. Add arbors over the entrance, and trellises to frame the doorway with rambling vines or climbing roses. Have structure plantings of shrubs near the house. A rustic gate, picket fence, or stacked stone wall overflowing with plants completes the picture. 

From Cascadia: Inspired Gardening in the Pacific Northwest by Ann Lovejoy

Nooks, Garden “Rooms”, and Seating Areas

Create intimate, cozy spaces. Add some height via walls, terraces, or raised mounds of soil bordered by rock, brick, or decorative fencing. Situate these islands around benches or little secret garden areas in your yard.

Herb and Veg Patch 

A pumpkin makes an excellent informal border for these Cosmos, Mirabilis, and Cosmidium.

It’s nice to have edibles and herbs planted in their own spot close to the house for easy access, but don’t shy away from incorporating these plants into your borders or ornamental plantings.  Alternatively, you can plant ornamentals in your edibles! Flowers like zinnia, cosmos, marigolds, and sunflowers brighten up the edible landscape and attract beneficial insects.

In the traditional potager style, herb gardens (“wortyards”) were planted by themselves in grids with low borders of boxwood or germander. It might be fun to recreate a garden in this style with ancient herbs like costmary, lovage, betony, and vervain.

Practical & pretty herbs

Garden helpers and visitors 

Many classic cottage garden plants attract beneficials such as predator insects (lacewings, hoverflies, parasitic wasps, ladybugs) and pollinators (bees, butterflies, etc.). Plants in the mint (like lavender or salvias), mustard (brassicas, like arugula or alyssum), aster (like daisies & coneflowers), and carrot (Bishop’s flower, angelica, fennel) families have flowers that are especially nectar-rich and attractive to beneficials.

Swallowtail on an Echinacea.

Leave seedheads on spent flowering plants for birds to eat in the winter, especially those of herbs like fennel or parsley and native ornamentals like coneflowers or sunflowers. 
Welcome birds into your garden by having seed and nectar feeders and birdbaths.
Consider planting mixed lawns instead of having perfect turf grass to create a more natural habitat for wildlife. Encourage clover, English daisies, dandelions, or plant “Eco-lawn” mix.   

Finishing touches 

From The Abundant Garden by Barbara J. Denk and Debra Prinzing

Fences, arbors, trellises, and latticework, along with rustic and whimsical additions of salvaged materials, funky containers, and antique-looking garden art will complete the picture. Make sure to leave room for some old brick or rock pathways that lead to cozy nooks and seating areas. 

From Sunset Cottage Gardens by Philip Edinger

      If you have a shed, enliven it by painting it fun colors, and add some window boxes and foundation plantings around it. 

From Country Gardens magazine. Take my advice: don't ever google "cottage garden shed"--you will lose hours to browsing, and possibly ruin your keyboard with drool. 

Need more inspiration? Check out these great books! Some of these are out of print, but should be readily available at the library or online.

• English Cottage Gardening for American Gardeners by Margaret Hensel. Filled with beautiful, inspiring photographs of both English and American cottage gardens.

• Tasha Tudor’s Garden by Tovah Martin. A tour of Tasha’s amazing Vermont garden and “Corgi Cottage”. She’s my personal hero.

• Country Living Cottage Gardens by Toby Musgrave. A good look at the modern take on cottage style. Features several design plans.

• The English Cottage Garden by Jane Taylor and Andrew Lawson. A photographic tour through the picturesque and historic cottage gardens of Britain. 

• Creating a Cottage Garden in North America by Stephen Westcott-Gratton. Insightful and entertaining read. Tips on building a healthy garden from the ground up.

• Edible Landscaping by Rosalind Creasy. Any books by this author are great. She creates beautiful edible/ornamental combinations.