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Cottage garden heaven

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date17 March 2024
Publication titleDaily Star (England)
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

Geranium 'Rozanne' has flowers summer into - 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.

from autumn

Now pathways were 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 good oldfashioned nostalgia, here are some easygoing plant suggestions that will help you achieve your dream.

Campanula persicifolia

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...

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