What is cottage garden style - and how to achieve it

Hi there, it's Alexandra from the  Middle-sized Garden YouTube channel and blog and I'm talking about cottage  garden style, and whether there are any tricks or tips that you need to know  in order to make your cottage garden   look fabulous. Cottage garden style means a colorful mix of flowers, packed in together  with herbs and edibles, it's relaxed and pretty, and I think it's having a bit  of a moment at the moment and the reason for that is that although we gardeners  don't really follow fashion as such, we can't help being inspired by the great  shows, and this year there haven't been any great shows to be inspired by. On  top of that it's been quite difficult to get plants - we haven't been able to  get exactly the plants we want always and we've had to make compromises, so  I've had friends saying things like 'I'd never usually buy red pelargoniums  but they were the only ones I could get.' So we're having to put up with a  bit less control and a bit more of a mix, and thirdly, we're all much more local  we're going down the same streets, day after day, and while a nicely designed  path, a nicely clipped hedge or a beautiful gate is a pleasure to see,  what really gives us joy is when we suddenly see that flower pop up, that  marigold or that bee buzzing around the flower or bulb we haven't seen  before and that's really given everyone so much joy, so I think we're  all thinking 'just let's get more flowers into our lives.' So what are the  rules of cottage garden style? Well, the great thing is that aren't any. However,  up to a point, I think it's quite a good idea if you make your own rules. For  example Julie Quinn writes the London Cottage Garden blog and she champions  the cottage garden style in small urban spaces. For her, cottage gardening is  about making it easy. She grows plants which are easy and robust and common. She  says that she doesn't want to have to do any growing from seed, any pricking  out, any planting out and no staking no propagating, she doesn't do pest  control, she doesn't have topiary and doesn't have a lawn, she just have lots  of easy, common, robust greenery packed in tightly. The other thing she does is that  she excludes certain colors, for example, no black flowers or black foliage, and  she also finds white very difficult place as well. And at the opposite end  of the spectrum is Sue Oriel who with her partner Stephanie runs Country Lane  Flowers and she grows her flowers for sale in her garden, but there's a part  of her garden that she's just hedged off just for her, and that's the cottage  garden, and it's a riot of color and it's got loads of plants like roses and cat  mint and delphiniums and phlox and fruit   trees it's absolutely beautiful. Sue  says you can put anything you like in a cottage garden and then she adds 'but I  never put yellow or orange in there'. And of course having a few of those I don't  grow rules makes it an awful lot easier   to know what you do grow I think it can  help when you're establishing your own   cottage garden style to know where  cottage garden style came from and   the theory is that he had originated  with farmworkers who grew food to eat   and herbs around in their little plots  it's likely that really however that   cottage garden style actually started  when people had a bit more time a bit   more space and a bit more money to  grow flowers and to grow flowers for   something they really wanted to enjoy  there's a theory that plants would have   been divided from the big house gardens  and then they would have been passed on   to locals and that people would have  got perhaps the extra seedlings and   I think that probably is very true and  it really contributes to this idea that   you need to get plants that are easy to  divide easy to propagate easy to seed   and that grow well in your area in the  Victorian times the grand gardens were   very very formal they had very strict  color schemes in the bedding they had   topiary they had huge vistas they had  exotic plants brought in from all over   the world and William Robinson and  subsequently Gertrude Jekyll very much   kicked against this style and started  to introduce the idea of naturalness   and wildness and growing plants that  actually stayed in the ground all   year round because instead of quaking  the bedding out and then putting in   new bedding you actually grew plants in  your garden and of course this is a much   easier garden style for people to copy  because the very formal bedding schemes   really don't work in smaller spaces  William Robinson's own garden which   was very influential in this movement  is still available to see today it's   grave time manor hotel and it's been  beautifully updated by Head Gardener   Tom coward and there's a video about  that in the description below along with   links to the designers and companies  and bloggers that I'm mentioning in   this video so what are the key elements  you must have in the cottage garden well   number one is a fruit tree if you  go back to the cottage garden roots   cottages would have grown fruit tree  for their fruit but equally it gives   you blossom to enjoy in the springtime  it starts their pollinators off early   and what's more important is that you  always need some vertical presence in   a small space and cottage garden style  is small space gardening fruit trees   also give you some more vertical space  to grow up and indeed fences and hedges   will do that as well sue Oriole has two  climbers both roses going up through her   fruit trees and Julie Quinn says that  she once again chooses the easiest   climbers which for her is sunny suckle  there's a video on climbing plants which   you can see in the description below  showing you what you need to take into   account if you're going to great rhyming  plants in your garden and another very   big cottage garden style element is no  lawn if you've got a large ish cottage   garden but they are mostly small spaces  you probably would have a bit of lawn   but otherwise you would have paths  and a terrace and somewhere to sit   and maybe a practical working area but  on the whole a cottage garden is about   growing as many plants as possible so  what are the best cottage garden plants   you'll often see lists top 10 cottage  garden plants but as I said if it's   local to you if it's easy to grow if  you love it it's a cottage garden plant   but there are some classics and these  include foxgloves hollyhocks cap mint   delphiniums phlox lupins cosmos sue is  also on a self-declared mission to get   garden Pink's back into the garden  because she says they're so easy   to care for and they have such glorious  colors anything that sells seeds easily   is definitely a cottage garden plant  so that could be a richer on Nigella   fennel poppies forget-me-nots Nicholas  coronary or rose Campion and of course   all the semi wild flowers might be a  weed such as wild carrots and poppies   are definitely cottage garden flowers  here at Hampton Court Palace Garden   festival garden designer Pollyanna  Wilkinson has designed something   called the matrix aft garden and all the  garden plants in it are edible or can be   used for a purpose and there's lots of  wild carrot in here but they can be used   for a purpose like dying or medicines  or something like that and that's what   makes this garden very cottage garden  and also at Hampton Court is another   garden called the therapeutic garden  by garden designer Tony Wagstaff and   that's very cottage garden because it's  actually filled with medicinal plants   such as geraniums and eucalyptus and  plants that we've actually forgotten   about as having a use or a reason so  you'd also in a cottage garden need a   wide range of flowers all year you would  start with the primulas and the bulbs   in spring then there's the midsummer  madness which is always gorgeous and   after that you might have salvaged  dahlias perennials like persik area   really anything that you love and grows  well in your garden and of course there   are all the herbs they are a key part of  a cottage garden fennel and jelica saved   chives rosemary lavender and any herbs  that are local to you you can also treat   cottage garden style gardening as a way  of learning about gardening friends will   give you a plant and you'll put it in  and maybe it'll survive maybe it won't   but don't feel too bad about it because  not all plants enjoy being in a cottage   garden they have to be pretty was robust  and resilient and Saguaro has discovered   that she can often find plants that  grow well in the cottage garden that   she then does go on to grow for country  lane flowers for selling for example   she discovered that if she grows corn  flowers from seed and transplants the   seedlings from the greenhouse into  the borders they do go very floppy   but if she direct sews them into the  borders the corn flowers grow up much   straighter so she's taking that lesson  into the country named flowers beds and   growing corn flowers for picking so what  about furniture and garden ornaments   for cottage garden style well obviously  recycled and upcycle is a big thing and   the nature craft garden at Hampton Court  it's very much an example of this and   also here's another show garden at BBC  gardeners world live designed by Peter   Cowell and that uses entirely upcycle  materials for its hard landscaping   while having a very much cottage garden  palette so it's a kind of contemporary   version of the cottage garden using  things like scaffolding boards and   pallet wood and recycled bricks and also  the fire which is a recycled and carved   up gas canister the other cottage garden  trend for furniture and ornaments is to   be handmade here at the Abbey physik  garden in Faversham they have lenss   shed movement and they make quite a lot  of things for the garden so you'll get   homemade benches like this and also  it can be a question of just adding   a link of paint to something you've got  already or something that you've bought   quite cheaply in the chain store here  at Hampton Court Palace they've painted   old children's bicycles to go with the  flowers and while I wouldn't quite go   that far I do think you can use colour  in a cottage garden to achieve a great   deal for example Julie Quinn uses a  terracotta bright terracotta parasol   and Mediterranean blue pots and it  gives so much color to the garden   to be able to use furniture and pots  in that way if you're interested in   more design tips for garden as a garden  design playlist at the end of this video   and I'm also doing a video on English  country garden styles so if you want   more tips ideas and inspiration for  your gardens then do subscribe to the   middle size garden YouTube channel  thank you for watching goodbye

Channel: The Middle-Sized Garden

Views: 263,467

Keywords: Garden tips, easy gardening, inspirational gardens, small backyard, garden ideas, small garden, middlesized garden, middlesized backyard, backyard garden, gardening advice, small space garden, urban gardening, english garden, gardening, garden, how to garden, gardening for beginners, no till, small garden design, sustainable garden, gardening ideas, cottagecore, cottage garden, cottage garden design, cottage garden ideas, cottage garden plants, cottage garden planning

Id: u0Me96RiM5c

Length: 10min 35sec (635 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 13 2020