New spin on old favourites
The nostalgic charm of the cottage-style garden featured prominently at the recent Spring Festival, writes Alice SpenserHiggs
PERHAPS it’s nature’s way of achieving balance but as the world speeds up technologically, there is an equally strong pull towards the natural, exemplified by the resurgence of heirloom plants and cottage garden style
The cottage garden may seem like a nostalgic look backwards, but it is more in tune with today’s environmental awareness than most other garden styles.
In so many ways, the cottage garden ticks all the right boxes for today’s gardener. There is the element of sustainability and biodiversity that is required for a healthy ecosystem that attracts beneficial insects, helps to control pests naturally and is kinder to the soil than mono-cropping.
The interplanting of herbs and vegetables with flowers appeals to health-conscious gardeners who grow edibles in an organic way that steers clear of pesticides.
Size-wise, the dimensions of the cottage garden suit the limited space for gardening that is characteristic of properties in upmarket security estates. The informal style fits more easily into the awk- ward spaces than the conventional lawn and shrubs.
Examples of modern and traditional cottage garden style can be seen at Garden World’s Spring Festival, where four of the 11 new designer gardens give their interpretations of the cottage garden.
The overall winner, “Jane’s Delicious Cottage Garden”, captures the nostalgia of a traditional cottage garden in which all available space is filled and everything is recycled, reused and reinvented. It shows quite clearly that self-sufficiency can go hand in hand with good garden design that exuberantly combines an abundance of flowers, herbs, veggies and fruit.
The garden is a collaborative effort between landscape designer Grant Gove, Claire Slabber of Talborne Organics and Jane Griffiths of Jane’s Delicious Garden.
Former editor of SA Garden magazine, Lizette Jonker, showed that you can have it all, even in a tiny space. Her garden features a daffodil meadow and lavender hedge, a flowering, grassy border for birds and butterflies, a potager and lots of quirky recycling ideas. The formal, symmetrical layout gives structure to the lavish planting and busyness of the garden.
Horticulture students from the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) and Unisa tackled the challenge of urban, sustainable gardening using only edible plants, including flowers, and companion planting principles.
The TUT garden favoured the traditional approach, with colourful pansies and grasses among the herbs and vegetables while the Unisa students went modern and modular, in keeping with contemporary city living.
Using reclaimed industrial wooden pallets they created vertical gardens and plant boxes in which to plant flowers and vegetables. The pallets were also used for decking and the outdoor furniture. The wood was painted in bright primary colours that brought the whole space to life.
The charm of all of these show gardens comes from their use of “old-fashioned” plants and varieties — even though these may not have been authentic or traditional cottage garden plants.
For the really old-fashioned flowers one has to search the seed racks as most are only available in seed packets.
Kirchhoff’s Marlaen Straathof recommends easy-to-grow plants like alyssum, asters, candytuft, cornflower, cosmos, forget-menot, lavatera, marigolds, portulaca, phlox, salvia, scabiosa, verbena or zinnias that can all be scatter sown. They are great space fillers, especially in new gardens or newly made-over gardens which can look bare while waiting for young trees and shrubs to settle in.
Mixes like the Kirchhoffs summer scatter packs (tall or dwarf) for sun or shade contain several varieties in one packet. They take the guesswork out of making your own mixes and flower at different times, ensuring that the garden is always full of flowers.