Cottage Garden

Designers: Julie Phipps & Nicholas Evans
Sponsors: The Sun newspaper, Capel Manor College, Solopark plc, Stoneage Architectural
Contractor: Capel Manor staff and students
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The mature owners of this cottage would like a garden that reflects their love, passion and enthusiasm for gardening. They adore plants and are looking for borders filled with flowers offering different shapes, form and texture, with evergreen and deciduous shrubs for balance and structure. The planting will be informal and relaxed. Traditional cottage plants such as roses, lavender, and dianthus are to be included along with a suitable tree.  Being passionate about plants this couple have adjusted the soil in some areas to include plants with different growing requirements and also like to use new varieties. Although fairly high maintenance this couple are very active and enjoy nothing more than working in their garden and then relaxing  at the end of the day  on the garden seat. This garden shows what can be achieved in a small space and will hopefully encourage the public not to pave over their front gardens but to enjoy plants to the full and help the environment by locking up carbon dioxide and stop excess water run off.

The main structure of the garden is the façade of the cottage which has a porch using reclaimed timber and tiles. Other structures include a wigwam to provide some height in one of the borders and also for supporting climbers. There is also a simple picket style wooden fence typically found in cottage gardens which also provides support for climbers and also a neighbour’s hedge on one side of the garden. The entrance to the garden is through a gate under a wooden arch.

The  soil type for this garden is a good free draining medium loam. The aspect is west facing so the garden is sunny but has a cast of shadow from the neighbour’s hedge. The garden is set in the UK. As the owners of this garden are keen plant enthusiasts they have adjusted areas of soil where necessary to meet the growing requirements of different plants. Also to maintain the health of the plants they would feed them regularly.

The area of hard landscaping is approximately 6.5 square metres with a smaller area of gravel under the larger window. The gravel aids with surface run off and helps to add a different texture to the hard landscaping. The paving is reclaimed stone and is of a traditional style to complement the cottage theme. In the gravel area is a garden seat which is both functional and decorative. There is an old water pump which is used for decorative purposes.

The style of planting is quite traditional as to be expected of a cottage garden but as the owners are keen plant enthusiasts there will be new varieties as well as old. The tree will be a variety suitable for a small garden. There will be a variety of herbaceous perennials, climbing roses, deciduous and evergreen shrubs for structure with groundcover planting as well. The garden is quite high maintenance but this is typical of cottage gardens. The plants chosen will offer different flower forms and different textures and the colour palette consists of blues, pinks, purple with white.

The garden uses a high element of reclaimed or sustainable sourced materials as stated earlier such s paving, fencing and porch materials. Compared to many front gardens this has a large ratio of planting to paving to aid water run off and general porosity. The area under the garden seat is porous pea gravel. The carbon footprint of this garden is low as many plants are sourced locally or grown in house and they have a reasonable life expectancy through regular division. Many elements of the garden will be incorporated into future show gardens at the college after Chelsea.