The cottage garden is a distinct style characterized by informal design, traditional materials, dense plantings, and a mix of ornamental and edible plants. English in origin, the cottage garden depends on grace and charm rather than grandeur and formal structure. Homely, functional gardens connected to working-class cottages date back centuries. Still, their stylized reinvention occurred in 1870s England as a reaction to the more structured, rigorously maintained estate gardens with their formal designs and mass plantings of greenhouse annuals.
The earliest cottage gardens were more practical than today's, emphasizing vegetables and herbs, fruit trees, perhaps a beehive, and even livestock. Flowers, used to fill spaces, gradually became more dominant. The traditional cottage garden was usually enclosed, probably with a rose-bowered gateway. Flowers common to early cottage gardens included traditional florists' flowers, such as primroses and violets, as well as flowers used in the household, such as Calendula and various herbs. Others were the richly scented old-fashioned roses that bloomed once a year and simple flowers like daisies. In time, cottage garden sections were also added to some large estate gardens.
Modern cottage gardens include countless regional and personal variations and embrace plant materials such as ornamental grasses and native plants not found in the rural gardens of cottagers. With their full fragrance and lush foliage, traditional roses remain a cottage-garden mainstay, alongside modern disease-resistant varieties that retain traditional attributes. Informal climbing plants, whether traditional or modern hybrids, are also common, as are the self-sowing annuals and freely spreading perennials favored in traditional cottagers' gardens.
Source: wikipedia.org
Links
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