Defining The "New" Cottage Garden

Photo Courtesy of Bill Slater

Defining The "New" Cottage Garden

Oh, all right! I give in! I already covered a similar topic with the article, "Mix-Up Your Borders". Even so, I have had more than a few e-mails requesting how one can go about creating the "typical cottage garden". Now, I have no idea on earth how any of us in this day and age are going to accomplish this! First, we are going to have to define our terms on what is a cottage garden, and what it is that we want.

In the most traditional and purest definition, a cottage garden was a garden that had no lawn. The front yard was a hodgepodge of self-seeded annuals and biennials, perennials, herbs, veggies, roses, shrubs, and probably a stray chicken or two. It may or may not have had a gated fence in the front yard, more likely to contain livestock rather than to add a picturesque touch. The side yards were also strewn with all kinds and combinations of plants. Out back, more vegetables and fruits than flowers were grown. Toss in a few chickens and ducks, a few geese and maybe a goat, pig, or a cow or two, and you will have a fairly accurate idea of what a true cottage garden was.

Now, I am sure this is not what most of us have in mind when we define a "cottage garden"! So, we have to define what it means to us, individually, when we want a cottage garden. Let me toss in my ideas, and perhaps we can meet on some common ground.

When I think of a modern cottage garden, I envision undulating borders of roses, vines, perennials, annuals, and biennials. I am sure that is what most of us have in mind. I also have a few trees, some bird feeders, a bird bath, and other ornaments. There are also larger focal points such as my bench and gazebo. In the front, I have a flower bed, a rounded triangle, of flowers and roses. Along the house, there are flowers and ornamental grasses in front of a mixed deciduous shrub border. That is what my contemporary attempts have created.

This year, I am taking it a step further. I am growing vegetables in among my potted plants and in all of my borders, even in the front of the house. While I cannot keep livestock, I am sure that my cats and the neighbor's ducks will amble in to complete the atmosphere!

The main thing to realize is that we are not going to have everything blooming all at once: trees, mums, daylilies, etc. Plan for a succession of blooms. Cheat a little and plant lots of annuals or sow annual seeds among your perennials to carry the show. Have a good area of lawn out front to appease the local ordinance people, but really concentrate on expanding the borders and using the lawn as pathways only in other areas. That is what I am doing in my large sideyard, and I think it is coming right along, and it looks pretty good too, I might add! It may not be ala Thomas Kincaid, but it'll do!

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