A history of cottage gardens and how to plant one (2024)

Over the last couple of centuries, the evolution of the English cottage garden has revolutionised the way we garden today. Even so, the term has an old-fashioned, rural ring to it – it conjures up romantic images of hollyhocks and delphiniums; stocks and rambling roses ascending quaint thatched roofs; and even gatherings around the Maypole and milk maids-a-milking.

Medieval cottage gardens grew out of a necessity for self-sufficiency, but their informal and slightly haphazard aesthetic has seen many a renaissance over the last two centuries. From the heyday of the Arts and Crafts movement to the Chelsea Flower Show in recent years, the cottage garden is constantly being reinvented, and it could arguably be seen as an important foundation of modern, naturalistic planting design.

MAY WE SUGGEST: Caroline Holdaway's dream Cotswold cottage

Although its origins were humble, the cottage garden became stylised in the nineteenth century, as flowers became more of a dominant force within the old wild framework. The gardener and journalist William Robinson – an early advocate of the style – saw the artistic merits, declaring the cottage garden to be ‘often far more beautiful than the gentleman's garden near it'. Writing in his iconic 1883 book The English Flower Garden, he believed that it was more than just the favourable compact microclimate created by the proximity of a cottage. Instead, it was the ‘absence of any pretentious “plan”, which let the flowers tell their story to the heart’. Gertrude Jekyll agreed, writing in 1899 in Wood and Garden, ‘one can hardly go into the smallest cottage garden without learning or observing something new. It may be some two plants growing beautifully together by some happy chance, or a pretty mixed tangle of creepers, or something that one always thought must have a south wall, doing better on an east one’. With all of this in mind, we can breathe a sigh of relief: here there are no rules, and this should be embraced.

The modern cottage garden should celebrate this experimental spontaneity, but also acknowledge the increasingly important ecological role it can play. It should be seen as a living being, constantly changing and finding balance, with us intervening when needed. Let nature guide you, and tolerate (or even encourage) self-seeding, but be there to put a stop to the thugs.

A good place to start is to work with what you’ve got. You don’t need to live in a country cottage idyll. The style can suit urban environments too, as proven by cottage dwellers migrating to cities in the industrial revolution, bringing with them the colour, fragrance and spirit of their abodes to provide a nostalgic reminder of rural life. I even believe that I am capturing the ethos of the style using an edible and ornamental mix in pots on our small London roof. This is achieved with a trailing Jasminum officinale, towering Broad Bean ‘Martock’ (in place of the typical foxgloves), a peppering of Allium sphaerocephalon, cornflowers grown from seed, a prolific Anisodontea capensis and even a root-bound Gunnera manicata packed closely together to form an unusual but pleasing mix. Whatever your situation, a form of enclosure would help to create a suitably intimate space, be it from a hedge, fence or walls of the building.

When considering plants for your cottage garden, a good rule of thumb should be to think, ‘do I like it?’. Until we can visit classic examples such as the late Margery Fish’s East Lambrook Manor again, try to observe front gardens you pass and take note of combinations you believe to work well. I was stopped in my tracks on a recent evening’s jog, by a simple pairing of Rosa ‘Desdemona’ and Iris ‘Jane Philips’, for example. Get a balance of height (think Verbascum bombyciferum to Nepeta ‘Walkers Low’), colour (Delphinium ‘Pericles’ to Campanula lactiflora 'Loddon Anna'), and texture (Thalictrum delavayi ‘Splendide White’ to Iris ‘Benton Lorna’). Depending on space, add structure with crab apple Malus ‘Evereste’ or a fragrant climber such as Lonicera periclymenum 'Graham Thomas’, and consider effective self-seeders such as Hesperis matronalis, Cenolophium denudatum or Erigeron karvinskianus too.

Whatever you choose, plant them close together, bulking up the numbers of individuals in larger spaces to prevent them getting lost in the mix and staking those that need it. Packing them in not only creates the desirable wild aesthetic, but also provides habitat for birds and invertebrates. Above all enjoy the freedom, make it your own - and as Jekyll did - learn from the experience.