The English Cottage Garden (Country series,No. 34)

The cottage garden of today derives from two strands: the subsistence culture of the original cottagers, who grew the vegetables and herbs they needed, and the romantic notions of the gentry who, from around the seventeenth century, started to build larger cottage-style houses. The English Cottage Garden is loosely arranged as a stroll around an idyllic garden. With Jane Taylor as our guide, we enter through the wicket gate and up the garden path, discussing the medicinal and culinary herbs in the adjacent borders, take a quick lesson on the quirky art of topiary, relax on a garden seat beneath a shady bower, breathing in the fragrance of lavender and lily of the valley, admire the climbing roses and fruit growing up the cottage wall, and then inspect the greenhouse and outbuildings. Finally, we are shown a medley of flowers: some traditional, some transplanted from woodland and meadow, and some of the more sophisticated and exotic flowers now integrated into many a cottage garden.