what kinds of flowers for a 1890s cottage garden

yellowrose10

13 years ago

what kinds of flowers would be planted in a midwest 1890s cottage garden?

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Comments (8)

lavender_lass
13 years ago
Oh, what a fun theme! Do you have an 1890s cottage?

I would guess it would be a mixture of flowers that people brought with them from back east and some native plants and flowers.

Yellow rose might have been one, along with lilacs, which always seem to mark the old farmsteads :)
gardenweed_z6a
13 years ago
My first thought was lilacs too. What about columbine & coneflower, delphinium maybe? False indigo, tansy, feverfew & turtlehead are native in the eastern half of the U.S. along with common milkweed, beauty berry, bellflower, black snakeroot, blanket flower, gayfeather, cardinal flower, lupine, bee balm & black-eyed susan.
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The crepe myrtles near the house are an old Southern tradition (& it seems like I remember that cherry laurels sometimes were used that way, too). They shaded the porch area so you could sit outside during the hottest parts of the day, & when they matured, they shaded the roof, helping to keep the house a little cooler inside. There's a ton of space there for the taking (grass! lawn! ick!) without sacrificing a lovely old crepe myrtle. I'd keep the crepes & clear everything out from under them, cover the soil with a light layer of mulch (don't pile mulch up next to the trunk of any tree, it'll encourage insects & rot), & liberate some of that lawn area. You could start along both sides of the sidewalk, then the strips next to the driveway, adding mulch or brick or rock paths as you go... uh... what was the question? I read this wonderful book called "The Garden, An English Love Affair", that traces the development of gardening in England over 1000 years. The book says that cottage gardens were originally filled entirely with passalong plants, since cottagers worked at the manor house or on the manor land, & they worked their own gardens in their precious spare time. Some similarities came about just because of the nature of day-to-day needs: hodge-podge plantings, food & flowers in the same areas, & espaliered fruit trees because there wasn't much space central pathways to the front door bisected by horizontal paths because that's the most efficient way of getting through the garden herb gardens by the kitchen door for convenience fragrant flowers close to the house for enjoyment when you had to be indoors (no air circulation systems, no aerosol fresheners) hedges &, later, gated fences or walls to keep out wild animals I've had the thought that cottage gardening *as a style* (rather than as a necessity, as it was in the past) speaks to something in our natures that loves lushness & abundance.
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irene_dsc
13 years ago
Good question! I would tend to think that is more Victorian era, but I think the midwest has always been more vernacular than high-style. I will say that the older homes in the more rural areas of northern Illinois seem to have a lot of bridalwreath spirea, but I'm not sure the exact era they were introduced. I'll also say that the farms probably had more, well, farms and not so much gardens. Hmm..what about the bright orange ditch daylilies? Oh, and peonies, too! All low maintenance, long lived and survivors for people too busy with everything else!
sierra_z2b
13 years ago
Old fashioned red, white, pink peonies. There are also some old pass a long bearded iris from then as well...check HIPS website. Hollyhocks perhaps is another one. The old fashioned single flowering ones.

Can you tell us more about your project with these flowers?
jennypat Zone 3b NW MN
13 years ago
I was visiting a local homestead museum last year, where they were talking about flowers original to the era (mid to late 1800's) One thing I remember was that it was traditional to plant hollyhocks around the outhouse to hide it. Also they had peonies, some roses, coneflower and some annuals ( I don't remember which)
krycek1984
13 years ago
Yep, sure was the Victorian era. Right smack in the middle of it.

Hollyhocks would have been common, as well as lilacs. Peonies too. In many older houses you come across peonies and lilacs still going strong after so many years. It's amazing, really.
cottagegirl_tn
13 years ago
Old fashioned snowball and lots of daffodils!
mosswitch
13 years ago
Don't forget iris pallida dalmatica, the concord grape iris, first introduced in the l6th centry. It was surely in an 1890's garden! It is all over the US!

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what kinds of flowers for a 1890s cottage garden

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lavender_lass

gardenweed_z6a

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irene_dsc

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jennypat Zone 3b NW MN

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