Cottage classics
WHEN times are tough – as during political upheaval, war or when people in general are just finding things challenging – there’s a tendency to regress towards comfort, certainty and tradition.
We may look back wistfully to what we perceive as being simpler days. This may explain the enduring popularity of the simple cottage garden.
There’s a caveat here. The cottage garden as we picture it – roses over the doorway, a winding stone path, and a choir of hollyhocks, delphinium and phlox singing in perfect harmony – didn’t really exist as we imagine.
Cottage gardens evolved in the countryside around humble dwellings where the farmer’s wife might have planted some sprigs of something colourful among the veg. But gardens were primarily a source of food and nutrition.
Whereas the traditional cottage owner would have created walls from whatever materials were immediately available and the path may have been simply hardened mud, the concept became gentrified by such people as Beatrix Potter, Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson in the Arts and Crafts era.
Pathways started to be beautifully crafted in brick using elegant herringbone designs and the planting became profuse and ornamental.
These pretty cottage gardens were popularised through paintings, often on chocolate boxes (the Instagram of the day) or in jigsaw puzzles depicting a thatched cottage dressed in honeysuckle, rose and lavender. And you can see why it remains popular – what’s not to love about this romantic picture?
So if you want to abandon the contemporary and bathe in oldfashioned nostalgia, here are some easygoing plant suggestions that will help you achieve your dream.
Phlox paniculata is a classic cottage garden plant and mainstay of many a beautiful herbaceous border. Waist high, it will beckon you (and bees and butterflies) to its beautiful scent but never overpowers its neighbours. It flowers mid to late summer. Grow in moist fertile soil in full or partial sun.
Erysimum Bowles Mauve is a perennial wallflower but there’s nothing shy or retiring about it – its small mauve flowers will keep going from spring through to autumn and often beyond. It will perform well in sun or shade and will pair well with other cottage garden plants such as hardy geraniums.
These are the sturdy foot soldiers of the plant world – so reliable and hard working. They flower prolifically and then do it all again if you chop off the old flowers.
Geranium ‘Rozanne’ has vivid blue-violet flowers which it keeps producing all summer and into the autumn. Dotted about your plot, this will fill gaps and link your planting scheme together.
Nepeta, or catmint, is another great filler of spaces as it quickly forms bushy mounds of lavenderlike flowers.
A lovely companion plant for roses, it looks super tumbling over pathways and as you brush by, the aromatic leaves release their fragrance. Easy to grow, it likes the
sun, is quite drought tolerant and the bees love it.
Campanula persicifolia is a plant that will put up with a good deal of neglect and provide plentiful spires of lilac blue cup shaped flowers.
It self-seeds happily and its evergreen foliage will provide some winter interest. It’s best grown in fertile, moist but welldrained soil and prefers partial shade or sun.
Achillea millefolium is a really useful spreading perennial that is robust, easy to grow and relatively compact.
Its flat heads of flowers come in a great range of colour from acidic yellow through pale and deep pinks, red and white. It flowers early to mid-summer. Grow in moist or well-drained soils in full sunshine.