Beauty & Abundance: British Cottage Gardens

Originally the small plots where rural British workers grew the vegetables, herbs, and flowers they needed, cottage gardens were romanticized and reimagined by nostalgic Victorian gardeners into a bucolic idyll.

The style has endured ever since: drifts of colorful perennials mingle with fragrant roses, boisterous self-seeders teeter on the brink of chaos, fruit and vegetables scramble through rustic supports. Small in scale, wildlife friendly, natural, and organic, 'old-fashioned' cottage ga...