by Le Grand Chef

Created on: February 18, 2009

In the past three years I have been asked to deliver several seminars on constructing the wild or cottage garden. It has become a popular landscaping endeavor for private areas of larger properties, as well as the logical option for the less involved gardener or one who has little time to tend a formal garden.

There are two styles of cottage gardens you can develop. I use the word develop because a true cottage garden will take years before it grows into the look that most gardeners are after. The olde English cottage garden was originally a mix of perennial plants and flowers, vines, flowering shrubs, but most importantly herbs and some vegetables for the household. Wealthier owners may have also planted fruiting trees and varieties of roses if they could afford such luxuries. The cottage gardens of old England were a cross between beauty and functionality.

Today the modern cottage garden takes on a different form. Gardeners seek out beautiful plants from nurseries with little regard to local conditions. Most gardens of today are planted with a mix of perennial and annual plants which are native to a wide variety of locations and require special care to maintain their sole purpose, beauty. Gardens such as these are often tended endlessly and are only a weak copy of the true cottage garden. A real cottage garden can be planted once, allowed to grown on its own and trimmed and harvested at will or not at all. That is the kind of garden I will talk about today.

The first thing I recommend to people interested in cultivating a true cottage garden is to take stock of what they have. If you are starting from scratch there are a few things you have to know before you start planting.

- Once the location of the garden has been chosen you need to record how much light the area gets. Is it full sun or shade? Maybe you will be planting on more than one side of a house and you will have both conditions present. This is an important factor when choosing plants that will thrive. Don't forget to take note of trees and other buildings nearby that may cast shadows during some parts of the day.

- Soil types are very important. It is hard work and expensive to amend your soil and you will need to keep up on it year after year. You are better off to deal with the soil you have and plant vegetation that will thrive with as little effort as possible from you.

- Drainage is as important as soil type. They go hand in hand. A sandy soil will drain quickly but holds very few nutrients. Clays

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