Lovely project to be starting. It has been mentioned, but anything goes. I liked Geoff Hamilton's take on the modern cottage garden, there are many modern cultivars that if they had them back in the day, they would have used them, so don't feel they have to be in any way 'authentic'.
For native flowers, http://www.naturescape.co.uk/ do a good selection of seeds. As they are natives most can be sown in trays outside or direct very soon.
You don't need to stick to just native flowers though in the cottage garden. But many are just the ticket to set off the right feel.
The Geoff Hamilton BBC Collection (which includes his take on cottage gardens) is still available on DVD from Amazon for just £8 and comes highly recommended by many folk on the forum:
A cottage garden gives a feeling of freedom to plant what you like where you like that's only my opinion but it does let me get away with putting things in the wrong places. I might sneak in a dwarf bean into the border this year, their flowers are pretty and I get a dinner too can't be bad.
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Lovely project to be starting. It has been mentioned, but anything goes.
I liked Geoff Hamilton's take on the modern cottage garden, there are many modern cultivars that if they had them back in the day, they would have used them, so don't feel they have to be in any way 'authentic'.
For native flowers, http://www.naturescape.co.uk/ do a good selection of seeds. As they are natives most can be sown in trays outside or direct very soon.
You don't need to stick to just native flowers though in the cottage garden. But many are just the ticket to set off the right feel.
The Geoff Hamilton BBC Collection (which includes his take on cottage gardens) is still available on DVD from Amazon for just £8 and comes highly recommended by many folk on the forum:
http://www.gardenersworld.com/forum/the-potting-shed/geoff-hamilton/349035.html
There were companion books to the DVD collection too, I would recommend both the DVD collection, which is simply brilliant, and the books.
Thank you all so much progress is slowly being made keep you posted and maybe send pics at the end of the year
Wonder if I could get away with putting a few raspberry plants in the garden mmmm?
I would also recommend the Geoff Hamilton dvds - beautiful gardens and lovely gardeners too.
A cottage garden gives a feeling of freedom to plant what you like where you like
that's only my opinion but it does let me get away with putting things in the wrong places.
I might sneak in a dwarf bean into the border this year, their flowers are pretty and I get a dinner too
can't be bad.
Good luck Jess
thank you to all
bye bye lawn hello plant madness