Susie’s Garden
Our expert delves into some of the age-old delights of the cottage garden – medieval roses and Sicilian sweet peas
The cottage garden style of planting has been popular since Victorian times. Filled with charming old-fashioned flowers, such as roses, lavender and foxgloves, it is romantic and relaxed and every bit as popular today.
This free flowing style has well-filled borders with perennials, annuals and bulbs in a happy mix, and plenty of self-seeding for that informal look. The plants are easily propagated and cheap to produce. Climbers scramble up every available support and scent is important.
These are plants with histories. One of my most popular talks is on antique flowers, varieties that originated fifty or more years ago. These antique or heirloom flowers would be passed from one generation to another and are often oldfashioned fragrant varieties. There’s the Apothecary’s Rose, Rosa gallica officinalis, which is known from before 1400, a very free-flowering rose with good scent and rich pink flowers. This ancient rose was used in medieval households to make rosewater and cosmetics. Then there’s the pretty sweet pea ‘C Cupani’ which I grow every year. y This was sent to Britain in 1699 by a Sicilian monk calle ed Francesco Cupan ni and it was the orig inator of our mo odern sweet peas. Another annual w e grow around the ve egetable garden is the e double marigold, Calendula ‘Orange King’ ’. The famous garde ener, Gertrude Jekyll, grew a whole field of calendulas during d the First World W War to be sen nt to France for use in dressings to help heal the wounded.
Cottage garden favourites include scented flowers such as honeysuckle and wisteria, tall delphiniums and hollyhocks, and borders overflowing with geraniums and peonies.
If you want to grow some of these delightful plants or to learn more about them, the informal and friendly Cottage Garden Society has about 3,000 members. Its President is Nick Hamilton, Geoff’s son, who owns and runs Barnsdale Gardens, west of Peterborough and there are sometimes group visits to his garden.
The regional groups have talks, get togethers, garden visits and plant swaps as well as a quarterly magazine full of interesting articles, recipes and garden advice.