To be honest, I think a cottage garden is, well, a cottage garden. It is a style, more that anything else. The French tend more towards potagers, I would say. The true differences that I have noticed tend to be the materials at hand, used to do the hardscaping. The Irish cottage gardens I saw used quite a lot of stone walls, some of the 'parged' and whitewashed, all of them with campanula peeking out of crevices. English, (again, the ones I've seen) use more willow - wattle fencing, etc. In North America, I think we 'borrow' from all traditions, again using the materials we have locally. In New England, I think of picket fences around the garden. Think of a great ship's anchor or bell as a focal point. In the South, I think more wrought iron is used, due to the prevalance of rot and termites. In rural Eastern Ontario, we have split cedars fences, macramed together, as well as stacked stone walls, that the original Irish and Scottish settlers built - no one could afford the labour bill today. All across rural North America, lots of people use antique farm implements as focal points.

What else, guys??

Nancy - who is bored at work!

I read the other day that there is NO "American Cottage Garden" that can be defined. Here is the reason.

There is no definitive list of "American Cottage Garden Plants" that will flourish in every U.S. area such as
the Pacific Northwest, the hot and humid lower South,
the upper Midwest and the Southwestern desert,
not to mention different parts of California and the Eastern Seaboard States along the coast and inland.

Cereus plants that Rainey grows in the ground in South Florida are potted and brought inside for winter here.
The North Carolinia inland gardeners cannot grow some of the tropicals that I plant and expect them to return as perennial,
yet we're all 'in the South' so I couldn't really even define the 'American Southern Garden.'
I can't copy garden plans from cooler areas because all the same plants do not bloom the same time here.
I will leave the discussion to others to define how they use ideas from English Style or Italian Style Gardens and French Potagers and so on.

Nell

Very true about the sub-styles of American Gardens (not just cottage gardens but all gardens in general). And of course a persons individual taste also difines what thier garen will end up being. Sometimes one just cannot difine their garden. Each of us have to adapt our gardens to fit our weather and zones. I often see in some parts of the PNW that we use repetition of plants in the garden, those tried and true plants that will hold up in a lot of rain but can withstand some of the heat in summer. I think that Cottage Gardens are the hardest to difine because they ARE so varied. But that doesnt mean we cant take a crack at it!
CMK

My definition of a cottage garden is a garden where every spare inch is planted with something.

What Annette says! That's it! :-)

From what I've seen in England and France, you'll find cottage gardens separated out from the "land" as the gardens are tucked up next to the house. There is usually a fence, wall or growing hedge that is separating the cottage garden from the street (sometimes right up on a road) or surrounding meadows.

I mentioned this in another post, go look at the special edition from Cottage Living where they show tropicals, desert, etc. depending upon what one can grow. In other words, you can have a cottage garden anywhere, it's really the ambiance that sets it off to me.

Cameron

Cameron has a cottage garden; mine is a country garden.

Her garden mostly surrounds her house, a beautifully planned landscape. Mine wanders all around, with grassy paths,
outbuildings, lawns, islands, and driveways for farm equipment. It is continuually in progress.

This morning as I was going to check watering progress, two cardinals sped from the birdbath,
across the oval lawn in the upper garden and continued down a broad grass path like jets coming in for a landing.
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Nell's Upper Garden
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Finnaly getting sunny here! Foxesearth, Id like to take a long walk in your garden. I love how naturalistic it is. What do you think difines a country garden and sets it apart from a cottage one?
CMK

There are plenty of places to walk, Christin, you'd be most welcome. Bring a scarf to keep the gnats out of your ears and a sun hat.
I once considered turning all the long paths into a giant labyrinth, but knew DH would balk at mowing the circuits on a riding mower, LOL.

Just as an English Garden must be in Great Britain, a country garden has to be outside town?
By Annette's definition: a cottage garden is a garden where every spare inch is planted with something.
A country garden has open spaces, grass not being counted as 'something' in my world, it just holds the place together in the same manner as bare earth.

By Carmeron's description: in England and France, you'll find cottage gardens separated out from the "land" as the gardens are tucked up next to the house
... usually a fence, wall or growing hedge that is separating the cottage garden from the street or surrounding meadows.
We have a fence on one side that once separated cows from yard, the rest is open to street and fields. Tucked up next to our house are ancient boxwoods and camellias.

When the mowing is done the front yard is more like a park with islands.

Nell
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Sounds great Nell, ill bring the tea and cake. The idea of a labyrinth sounds REALLY neat. I saw one in a similar layout in a book called 'The Abundant Garden'. Does look like an ordeal to mow though.
Ive never really known what to lable my garden as. Mostly I just call it a 'moderized Cottage garden'. Ive never been able to bring myself to call it an 'English Garden' because its NOT in England and, most unfortunantly, doesnt have a castle or thatched-roof bungalow in the background ;-).
CMK

I don't think it matters if we have spacious gardens, small jam packed gardens, island beds, city, country, eastern, western, northern or southern gardens. They all exude a certain charm I relate to the cottage style of gardening. They all have that kind of charm that makes you want to stroll or just sit awhile and enjoy. Just like most things cottage gardens have evolved over the years.
Annette

We have different names for all our gardens - in this picture I have my.....

cottage garden - fenced in area
perennial bed - furtherest garden away - it parallels our property line
island bed - to the left of the picture
woodland garden - upper right of picture
pond and succulent garden - lower right part of the picture

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we also have dedicated vegetable gardens, 5 seperate planting areas around the front yard and various side yard gardens. I am not sure what you would call my place as a whole but it does incorporate a little bit of everything. I have learned over the years to keep all the cottage garden style plants in the fenced in garden and make huge drifts of plants and shrubs in other gardens - it is definitely a work in progress and a drought last year and now the potential of yet another dry summer has really slowed the process but I still dream......

Lynne

And mine is one of the 'stuffed full' kind.

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Libby

Just gorgeous.......

Lynne

Your gardens are always so pretty Libby. Im always wishing I had more room in my yard. Of course I could always just tear out more of my lawn, but somehow I just cant. Theres just something about walking thru a dewy lawn that makes me giddy... I would like to rip out a good deal in the front though, but thats a lot of work.
Heres a pic of my main garden. Sorry, its from last year. I havent gotten my new ones on yet.
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I think that what also may define a Cottage Garden, and set it apart from other styles of gardens, is that its not as rigorusly tended; not everyting has to be perfectly trimmed up or weeded (exaple given in above pic). Thigs are allowed to overgrow their space and pop up in diffrent areas, which gives it a much more relaxed feel.
CMK

Cmk, that is the description of my beds, not rigorously tended, nothing perfectly trimmed or weeded, things way too crowed and wrong colors next to wrong colors............I call it "relaxed" country gardens.

I don't have to impress my neighbors.........they are cows!

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Libby's garden is my idea of an English garden. The other gardens are islands, or perrenial borders. A cottage garden is a small space - those in the cottages did not own the land, they worked the land, and their garden an expression of the combination of their desire to have their own food, and express their own version of beauty. So, that having been said, they only had so much room.....

'The Cottage garden is a distinct style of garden that uses an informal design, traditional materials, dense colorful plantings, and a mixture of ornamental and edible plants on a smaller scale than gardens typically associated with estates and public settings. Cottage gardens go back many centuries, but their popularity grew in 1870s England in response to the more structured English estate gardens that used formal designs and massed colours of brilliant annuals raised in greenhouses. They are more casual by design, depending on grace and charm rather than grandeur and formal structure."

Thank goodness for Wikipedia.

Nancy.

I just love looking at these photos. Such beautiful gardens! Ah, Libby, I wish I could grow delphiniums like that, but it's just too hot and humid here.

After struggling with plant arrangement in the 94-degree weather today I was beginning to think perhaps I just have too many plants ... but now my mind is at ease, that just isn't possible ;-)

This reminds me, we have a book in our library at the park: "The American Cottage Garden". I usually get lost in the photos, but will try very hard to stay on task, read the text, and see what I can find out.

Diane

Lol, yet another post trying to define a Cottage Garden. I thought I would bring it up again since we were on the subject again.
I started this post because I wanted to know if every country had what was called a 'Cottage Garden' and what the difrence was between those countries cottage gardens. Everyone gave some good insight though. I especially like what Nacy posted from Wikipedia, about the history of the Cottage Garden.
CMK

Hi CMK! This thread ran just before I started posting, yet I was thinking I had read it. Maybe I'd looked up some recent ones when I first "joined" in.

Thanks,
Sue

If you google for 'German Garden Style' or 'Italian Garden Style' or insert any other country, you may find some interesting concepts.

"...the core of it had been planted in rhythmic repetition over a stony soil surface, but this time in a gentle medley of colors: blue flax, violet salvias, yellow Phlomis russeliana, and, in partnership with the magenta balls of Allium rosenbachianum, a variety of bearded irises in lemon, purple, cream, and copper. Many plants had already flowered, but clearly there was much still to come. In fact, I was told, the garden was programmed to climax every three weeks! (I have since been back both in July and September, and can confirm it.)" -- Stephen Lacy, writing in Horticulture Magazine, 2003, about "New German Style" gardens.

Flickr has more than 500 photos of 'French Gardens.'

Brazilian Gardens, I think of Roberto Burle Marx. I have a book featuring some of his designs.

I even found an article on 'Alaskan Gardens' -- yet another cottage garden in a cold climate, featuring irises, peonies and other goodies.

I stopped at Portuguese Gardens, thinking Eduarda can better inform about such, since she's there.

Curiously, many links take you to 'Italian Gardens' and 'French Gardens' and other types -- in the UK!

Maybe somebody could should a thread on 'elements of different garden styles.'

Nell

These are awesome! Thanks for the great ideas! I just moved onto a half-acre lot with very little landscaping, and have found out tonight that the name for what I like is cottage gardens. Now I can't wait to create one!
amanda