Happy Accidents in the English Cottage Garden
Written: Jul 31 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Gardens that are lovingly photographed against a background of fairytale cottages.
Cons: Makes me realize that my own garden looks nothing like this.
The Bottom Line: Lovers of gardens and all things British will enjoy this beautiful book.
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| vanne's Full Review: English Cottage Garden Books |
I love England for its gardens. One evening in Wiltshire, peering over a stone wall into a shade-dappled paradise smelling of honeysuckle and climbing roses, I daydreamed about living in the little stone house there. The garden was filled with jumbles of flowers, leaning this way and that. There were tall blue spires of delphinium and nodding columbines and a hundred shades of cool green. Bluebells made a carpet under a tree, and a flowering vine climbed the cottage roof. It felt like that garden had been there for a hundred years, and maybe it had been. I realized then that I had travelled thousands of miles largely to appreciate the beauty of the English cottage garden, which felt so different than the regimented shrubs of my own neighbourhood in suburban Canada. I will never again plant flowers in a row, I swear.
Back home again, I was pleased to find a book that kindles that fond feeling I have for those British gardens with their profusions of old fashioned flowers . It is called, of course, The English Cottage Garden.
A Gardening Heritage That Goes Way Back
The English have been pottering about in their gardens for a long time it seems. In the first chapter of this book we learn about the earliest days of cottage gardens. In the late 1300’s , Geoffrey Chaucer of Canterbury Tales fame was observing what plants were favoured in alehouse gardens, and his contemporary Jon the Gardener was writing about flowers that are still growing in modern flowerbeds today. We learn that the Madonna lily, also known as the cottage lily , was introduced by the Romans, and that the pretty flower known as clove pinks showed up during the Norman conquest.
Although this book has far more photography than text, it gives an overview of the evolution of the cottage garden “from the yard with more livestock than vegetables to today’s idealized picture”. This takes us quickly from the time of medieval cottagers to the “Picturesque” movement of wealthy Victorians who longed for an idyllic “rustic” past.
Chapter One is titled Cottages and Cottage Gardens of the Past and as well as the history lesson it discusses the different types of cottages found in various regions of Britain. The photographs in this chapter are more about the houses themselves than their gardens: cottages of limestone and granite, black and white half-timbered houses, and others with roofs of thatch or slate.
Through the Gate and Up the Garden Path
Chapter Two is about being outside the garden and looking in. This was the tantalizing view that drew me in when I walked by gardens all over England. The cottage garden always seems to be enclosed within a wall, a hedge, or a gate. These photographs of glimpses over a wooden gate or through a gap in a hedge are often simple, but it’s the view that brings back my travel memories the most.
Cottage Garden Topiary
Although I don’t often think of the clipped hedges of topiary as being a part of the typical cottage garden, some of the images in this chapter are so whimsical that they are among my favourites. The author notes that in the wintertime, when flowers have faded, topiary can become the garden’s interest. My favourite photo is one where hedges clipped into the shapes of enormous nestling birds , “broody hens”, shimmer in the winter sunlight, white with frost.
Adorning the Cottage Wall
Flowers, flowers everywhere. They are climbing up to the eaves, draping themselves over porches, and pouring out of windowboxes in this chapter. I note with amazement one species of pink clematis that has taken over half a rooftop in one picture. The very same species grows sedately on a trellis next to my door. Now why isn’t my clematis curling around my chimney like that?
The “classic combination” of wisteria and roses is featured in this chapter. Wisteria is one of my favourites. If you visit the village of Lacock in May (it lies just on the edge of the Cotswolds), you will see very fine examples of wisteria covering beautiful stone cottages, by the way.
A Medley of Flowers
A poem from the 19th century by John Clare begins this chapter.
It ends: “Old-fashion’d flowers which housewives love so well/The columbines, stone-blue, or deep night-brown,/Their honey-comb-like blossoms hanging down/ Each cottage-garden’s fond adopted child,/Though heaths still claim them, where they yet grow wild.
In the next pages , the author talks about the influence of gardener and writer Gertrude Jekyll, who strongly influenced British gardens in the 1800’s. Before her time, cottage gardens did not use the colours of the flowers to produce a certain aesthetic effect. It was in result a “happy accident” that the overall effect of the typical cottage garden was so lovely!
The gardens in this chapter are a medley of colour, some pictured in spring and some in summer. The cottage of Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife, is one of the places photographed, and I was pleased to note that her garden contained blue globe thistles as I just added some of those to my own garden this year.
Behind the Scenes
The next section of photographs I found really interesting, if not as idyllic as some others. Pictured in this chapter are rustic sheds and various outbuildings, meticulous vegetable gardens, and unusual sights such as a simple but slightly menacing scarecrow, and a lovingly photographed compost heap.
Garden Seats, Bowers, and Arches
This is the life! Relaxing in a hammock underneath an old apple tree or perhaps seated under a pergola of antique roses…..if you are in a garden that once belonged to a yeoman farmer in the 1600’s , all the better.
Water in the Cottage Garden
There is something very appealing about old stone wells surrounded by moss and flowers. As well, there are some very tranquil images of ponds, hand pumps, and one particular garden which grows by a working water-mill that dates back to the 13th century. These are well-established gardens!
Cottage Garden Sophistication
The sophistication of this type of garden in this last chapter is subtle. So subtle in these photographs that I was relieved. I think they meant that colour themes were being used more purposefully in these gardens than in times long-ago, or perhaps some of the roses didn’t date back to antiquity. Whew! I was worried there for a minute.
I wholeheartedly enjoyed this book. Its text was informative, if brief, but each photograph was well-captioned . The gardens featured in The English Cottage Garden are located all over England from Dorset to Cumbria(although most seem to be from central England) and are beautifully photographed. Of additional interest is the photographer’s note at book’s end which describes the camera equipment and film used and the time of day most photographs were taken. I have this vision of this photographer hiking all over England to capture these gardens in the rosy light of dawn.
If you are a gardener, this book may inspire you , and if you are a traveller who loves England, this book will make you smile fondly.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
vanne
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Location: Vancouver Island, BC, Canada
Reviews written: 12
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About Me:
The more I see of the world, the more I like it.
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