Get the cottage look
Give your garden a relaxed, flower-rich feel, with laidback plants, self-seeders, fruit and veg, says Val Bourne
Create flower-rich borders with a laidback look, using cottage garden favourites, self seeders and delicious home-grown edibles
Whatever your opinion of cottage-garden style, it has certainly stood the test of time. It evolved during an age when plants were passed over the garden fence as cuttings and small divisions. Some were edible, some purely ornamental, some fragrant and others medicinal. They were packed in tightly because space was at a premium, and they framed the cottage so the focus was always on the humble dwelling. The ‘glorious jumble’ was full of wildlife; birdsong abounded and bees hovered over the flowers. Fortunately the cottage look is not exclusive to cottage owners: you can create your own cottage garden anywhere, using a mixture of edibles, quintessential cottage garden plants and some good self-seeders that pop up unannounced. With this failsafe combination you’ll get a swathe of flowers that completely covers the soil, reducing weed growth, provided you can keep those self-sown plants in check. The whole area can be cut down in early spring.
For a natural look, plant in ribbons and drifts rather than blocky sections, and aim to make wider borders rather than narrow strips. Create a backbone of perennials and plant them in threes, fives or sevens depending on the size of your border. A good technique is to place one of the plants a little bit further away from the main drift, to act as an eye catcher. The traditional colour palette is full of soft blues, pinks and whites and flowers are simply shaped and bee-friendly. Most will peak in high summer, but it’s possible to extend the season with later annuals such as cosmos and airy perennial asters. Aster ‘Little Carlow’ forms an upright bush and the tiny, diamond-patterned buds open to a haze of soft-blue. Spring favourites could include primroses, pulmonarias and
forget-me-not (myosotis). The successful cottage border looks better if one softly-toned plant is threaded through the whole area to unify the planting. This could be a selfseeder such as sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis), Nigella damascena or soft stipa, Nassella tenussima.