[Inspiration] Inspiration Page – AT25 step into the Cottage Garden

step into the cottage garden

What is a cottage garden? It’s loose, friendly, pretty and domestic with no grand gestures, just packed full of plants and colour.

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Knautia Combination

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Naturalising Toadflax Collection

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Knautia macedonica

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Dreaming Spires Foxglove Collection

Lavender and Daisies Collection

Two cottage garden classics that are drought-tolerant, minimal TLC, long-performing, and beautiful plants to pair up at the front of a sunny border, patio or to line a path

Alcea rosea (Hollyhock Mix)

Big, bold and beautiful, hollyhocks sure do stand out in the garden. This is a mix of all our favourite colours, from pale pinks to deep maroons. It’s one for the back of a sunny border, drawing in bees and butterflies.

Narcissus 'Precedent'

With a decorative Tudor ruff similar to ‘Precocious’, I love these frilly forms for the vase. The outer petals, or perianth, are slightly reflexed to better display the exquisite salmon pink cup inside.

Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight' AGM

Sarah's favourite hydrangea, which opens the cleanest, brightest, acid green. Then the flowers fully flatten and turn pure ivory, before being washed with rich pink. Fantastically long garden value.

scented favourites for the cottage garden

I’m super-keen to add more and more scented plants to our — and any — garden. It adds a whole other dimension that hugely enhances being out and walking through any outdoor space, large or small. There are some here best at dawn (sweet rocket), others at dusk (the honeysuckle) and plenty that just smell amazing all the way through the day!

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Hesperis matronalis var. albiflora

£29.95

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Camassia leichtlinii 'Semiplena' (d)

£11.95

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Bronze Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’)

£22.95

Phlox paniculata 'David'

An excellent white phlox, with vigorous growth and medium height, and nice bright, light-green leaves and good mildew resistance. A top favourite.

Tulip 'Campbell'

‘Ballerina’ has been our long-standing favourite tulip here — elegant, tall, and SCENTED. It’s hard to think of anything better, but then, along came ‘Campbell'

Hyacinthus orientalis 'White'

Almost a garden in itself, this hyacinth pumps out the flower stems, three or flour from each bulb, with the individual bells themselves not clustered tightly like in the shampoo-and-set of your usual hyacinths, but open, well-spaced and generous

Narcissus 'Polar Hunter'

Generous, very early variety with unusual green colouring and powerful perfume. This multi-flowered form produces up to four flowers on tall stems which begin green before morphing to a cool ice white with subtle green undertones