It’s the sheer exuberance of cottage gardens that appeals to me – plants spilling over pathways, opportunistic self-seeders colonising walls and softening paving and the unexpectedly delightful colour combinations when a purple aquilegia pops up among the lime-green euphorbia, as happened in my plot last year. Then there’s the element of make do and mend: giving an old tin bath new life as a planter or using whatever spare timber you’ve got to hand to fashion a raised bed or simple rustic arch. The current vogue for “edimentals” – plants that are both ornamental and edible – fits right into cottage-garden style, too: globe artichokes towering above the borders, and crimson-f lowered broad beans and ruby-stemmed Swiss chard mixed in with the snapdragons and clove-scented pinks. There are no hard and fast rules for making a cottage garden, so pick and choose the elements from our suggestions that work for you – and enjoy using your imagination.
Gardening editor
1 GROW ROSES AROUND THE DOOR
In Helen Allingham’s Victorian watercolours of cottages, the front door is always wreathed in roses. You can plant one that dates from those days such as thorn-free ‘Zéphirine Drouhin’ (pink, 1868) or ‘Madame Alfred Carrière’ (white flowers, 1879) or go for a new variety, such as ‘Pink Perpetue’ (1965), which will grow on anorth-facing wall. Training branches horizontally once they’re at the top of the frame boosts flowering, as does deadheading. Most climbers are repeat-flowering, so you’ll have roses round the door from June to October.
2 WEAVE A WIGWAM
The simplest structures need be nothing more than twiggy hazel prunings pushed into the ground as a rough pyramid, ideal for growing sweet peas. For something more artful, weave supple willow wands into a wigwam: learn how to make your own on a day course (see page 31) or buy one from a local crafter.
3 GROW FROM SEED
It’s how most people did it before the advent of garden centres and plug-plant suppliers. Many cottages had pots of seedlings on indoor windowsills waiting to go outside. You can end up with more plants than you think you can use but planting densely and repetitively is all part of the effect you’re after.
4 MAKE USE OF OLD WALLS
The vogue for vertical gardening sounds like a new concept but in its original incarnation it’s a staple of cottage gardens, from low retaining dry-stone walls, where swathes of purple aubrieta and campanula find a foothold, to tall brick walls, where valerian and antirrhinums anchor themselves in gaps in the mortar.
5 EMBRACE HAPPY ACCIDENTS
When you don’t overly control your garden and let plants selfseed, it can result in fortuitous combinations – feverfew and lady’s mantle, dark purple aquilegia and acid-yellow euphorbia – and poppi
