Old-time cottage gardens offer a style we think of as an English Garden. Plants that would be useful in early summer include: A Spiraea x bumalda; B Campanula punctata; C Penstemon digitalis; D Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’; E Cerastium tomentosum; F Geranium sanguineum var. striatum; G Lupinus polyphyllus; H Oenothera speciosus; I Veronica spicata; J Asclepias incarnata.

 

The original cottage garden style emerged in England prior to the Elizabethan era. Unlike the informal style of the Arts & Crafts garden, with which it has much in common, the structure was not an intentional backlash movement countering the contemporary formal knot gardens. Neither were these gardens composed for beauty and pleasure. There was no desire to create a formal design or to develop a grand estate— the idea was to supplement whatever foodstuffs the family could obtain. These plantings were functional gardens with plots for herbs and food close to the house—likely a thatch-roofed cottage.

The early cottage gardens combined vegetable plants, fruit trees, perhaps a beehive. There might have been a well for water and even space for some livestock, possibly a pigsty. Plants included traditional herbs grown for medicine, flavoring, pest control, fragrance, and even as sources for dye.

Some of the common herbs were feverfew, lungwort, angelica, sweet woodruff, lavender, thyme, wormwood, catmint, lovage, hyssop, and soapwort.

These simple barnyard gardens became more uniform in structure and appearance with the growing national prosperity during Elizabeth I’s reign. The utilitarian gardens took on a romantic look that is today the essential element of the English-cottage form.

As the style evolved, less attention was paid to practical considerations. For example, a rose-covered arbor might decorate the entry gate. Simple dirt paths became paved with discarded brick or pieces of stone in random patterns. There might be a central feature—instead of the watering well— possibly a sundial.

Flowers appeared not only on the useful plants, but some grown purely for decoration were shoehorned into the mix. Ornamental plants to consider might be the familiar delphinium, crocus, carnations, sweet William, marguerite, lily, peony, campanula, monkshood, primrose, veronica, lily-of-the-valley, and daisies.

In time, even the grand estates adopted a bit of the cottage garden aesthetic for their landscapes and created small plantings in the style. Some of these estates were actually entire villages with shops and artisans supporting the manor, and cottage plantings enhanced the local charm.

Sandi Blaze’s “English” garden in Connecticut.