Cottage garden to me means dense close-together plantings. Informal. Coneflower, monarda, yarrow, rudbeckia, iris, rose, salvia, spirea, ninebark, dogwood.

Foxglove!

Old-fashioned roses and hollyhocks -- the single kind. Picket fencing if possible (NOT plastic!!). Marigolds, cosmos, bleeding heart (pink AND white), pansies, daffodils, tulips, daisies, feverfew, forget-me-not, tall phlox, lavender, geum, helenium, aster, iris, primrose (if you can grow them), heuchera, Oriental and Asiatic lilies, sweet william, alyssum, perennial salvia, veronica... (Should I continue, LOL?)

Please, continue!

You asked for it!

Various thalictrums are lovely. Clematis. Alstroemeria -- utterly gorgeous in my opinion (sadly, not hardy for me in New England Zone 6 -- might be for you, tho. I bring mine indoors over winter). Chrysanthemums. Zinnia -- the taller ones especially. Campanula. Bachelor's Buttons. Rudbeckia -- especially "triloba" (fabulous and reseeds nicely but airy and charming and easy to remove where not wanted). Dahlias. Ferns. Daylilies and Hosta -- you will go crazy and need to purchase more land... Peonies!!! Columbine (the simple ones are more cottage-y). True Geraniums. Trollius. Japanese Anemones -- lovely, especially 'Honorie Jobert (not a thug).

That's all I can think of tonight -- it's after 2 A.M. and I do believe it is bedtime! Have fun planning your cottage garden(s), and do post photos here sometime.

Ah, I usually think of 'cottage gardening' as being more of an overall style rather than a list of specific plants. Basically, tight planting (no visible mulch) of interspersed plants, The idea of a cottage garden is often a jumbled mixture of all plant types (woodies, bulbs, perennials, annuals, herbs and vegetables (and especially, the cottage gardener's stand-bys - biennials). Often grown from seed and slips and usually dictated by expedience (what is available at the time), it is a style which is exuberant, generous and enthusiastic - certainly not controlled, formal or over-designed.

Characteristic plants include geraniums, hollyhocks, larkspur, cosmos, cornflowers, corncockles, nasturtiums.

IInteresting question, but ---.

For me the term "cottage garden", at least since it became a recognized concept in garden design and garden journalism, is uncomfortably vague.

Nice

warning - opinionated ranting ahead...

Indeed, Sunnyborders. Suspect the original 'cottagers' would have fallen over in helpless glee, coming across some of the painfully contrived 'cottage gardens' of design school orthodoxy...and imagine cottage gardens in actual 19C cottages might fall far short of current garden aesthetics, My own allotment version, minus anything in the way of hard-landscaping or structure, would probably benefit from cunning photography and intense primping - IRL, the squashed, patchy and unruly chaos would be featured in no design books/magazine articles/blogs ever.

I am still a helpless garden snob though...and can sniff out pastiche (such as all those 'show gardens' which tend to be a complete bucolic fantasy of old mills or railway cottages and the like), at a hundred yards.

What kind of garden do you have?

The "original cottagers", Camp, that's a good one!

I like the idea that an individual garden reflects the intent, endeavour and even personality of the individual gardener. The intent and endeavour can be bought and sold. I'd say that the personality can not.

The 'original cottagers' were poor and most of their space would be growing food. Anything ornamental would have been stuck among the vegetables, tough and easy to grow and passed along from person to person. What filled those criteria would be different depending on where you lived.

I will just add to the lovely plant list above, delphiniums. I think of cottage gardens as mostly pastel shades, blues and pinks and whites. Not a lot of bright yellow, orange or red. I like the style "cottage" garden because I enjoy spaces that are packed with plants and more of a "haphazard" look. Even if they are planned, the appearance is as if it were not. Just my two cents.

Another vote for delphiniums and foxgloves, tall spires are a must have in cottage gardens

I just ordered some delphiniums.

At least with my style of perennial gardening, find delphiniums live three or four years at the most here.

Find, however, that some very blue monkshood seem to last year after year.

Do suspect that folk know monkshood are likely to be very poisonous (ingestion, even through cuts in the skin). They have the same toxin as delphiniums, but much more of it.

Think monkshoods are not a substitute for delphiniums where there's children and pets.

I have monkshood as well but am lucky my labs and cats aren’t plant chewers. When my kids were little i always knew where they were in the garden (for their safety and the safety of my plants) and plan on doing the same with Kennedy(the little girl I watch) and my future grandson.

Sweet peas. My current favorite.

I think you're forgetting hollyhock and dianthus.

For me it’s the sense of being surrounded by flowers. Abundance. Scent. the feeling of being a little kid looking a poppy full in the face. Best captured now by sitting under a rose arbor or just plunking myself down in the middle of a path. The plants are my grandmother‘s flowers, poppies, peonies, lilac, black eyed Susan’s, lupines.

Strange as it sounds, primulas and auriculas were traditional cottage-garden flowers in the north of England - they were grown for competition.

Like the original cottage gardens, I like mine to be practical. The heart of my garden is food plants - fruits and vegetables - surrounded by herbs and flowers that serve multiple purposes including retaining hillsides and attracting pollinators.

My personal rule of thumb is, if it doesn't feed me, I don't feed it. So once established, all my flowers and herbs need to grow without any more water than what falls from the sky. My goal with all my beds is tight enough planting that weeds are mostly choked out, meaning minimal weeding for me. And of course everything non-edible needs to be either a perennial or self-seeding because restarting whole sections of my garden every year is not in the books.

I am reaching the point where some of the more vigorous growers are having to be hacked back a bit to keep them from taking over the garden. (I'm looking at you prostrate rosemary.) But the established sections of my garden do well on their own at this point with a bit of weeding, allowing me to concentrate what time and energy I have on food plants and on reclaiming more sections of this once-abandoned garden from the weeds.

Describing a cottage garden, I was going to say "haphazard," but I also like "unruly chaos."

My favorite cottage plants are Coreopsis and Cosmos.