How to grow an English country garden (2024)

FAQs

How to grow an English country garden? ›

Garden design is about making sense of your outside space, and when it comes to an English country garden, it's by creating 'rooms', forming pathways and enclosing your spaces. If you have a good-sized garden you can make several lawn-filled 'rooms', lay paths between them and enclose them with walls of hedges.

Garden design is about making sense of your outside space, and when it comes to an English country garden, it's by creating 'rooms', forming pathways and enclosing your spaces. If you have a good-sized garden you can make several lawn-filled 'rooms', lay paths between them and enclose them with walls of hedges.

The basic elements of an English garden include: large drifts of bright perennials, color themes, a wide variety of textures, and herbaceous borders—which are full of flowers through three seasons.

Layering of cottage garden plants is a key feature of English gardens. Trees or tall shrubs are used as the upper layer, while mid-height and low-growing shrubs mix with perennials and ornamental grasses to form the main planting.

Four-season appeal in Portland. How long does it take to create a show-quality cottage garden? About 18 months and most of that is growing time. Darcy Daniel created year-round interest in her garden by using plants that hold their places in the off-season.

Mix Annuals and Perennials

Popular choices for cottage style gardens include lady's mangle, foxgloves, pinks (Dianthus), peonies, hollyhocks, phlox, delphiniums, lavender, herbs, primroses and hydrangeas. Include plants that bloom at different times, so you'll have something in flower throughout the growing season.

He says that English country plants include rhododendrons, clematis, roses, honeysuckle, foxgloves, hollyhocks, alchemilla mollis, dahlias and perennials. Go for full, deep borders like this one at Doddington Place Gardens.

Features of the English Garden Style

Flowers with big blossoms such as English garden roses, peonies, dahlias, and ranunculus are common. Spiky, vertical accents are also a component with popular varieties including delphinium, snapdragon, hollyhock, and foxglove.

"English would be more formal. English gardens utilize hedges and crisp, vertical evergreen accents to define spaces and punctuate certain areas." The original cottage gardens, which Lenhart says began in the 1800s, incorporated fruit trees and aromatic plants out of necessity.

In summary, French gardens are characterized by their formality, symmetry, and control over nature, while English gardens are known for their natural appearance, informal layout, and incorporation of varied plantings and landscape features.

What colors are in an English garden? ›

an English-garden-inspired color palette // blue-green, purple, red-violet, violet, pink | Green colour palette, Purple color palettes, Colorful garden.

In this garden, as in English gardens through- out history, walls are both practical and decorative. They protect plants from cold winds and hungry animals. They radiate heat, thereby prolonging the growing season. They create intimate enclosed spaces while blocking out unwanted noise or unsightly views.

Along with volume and texture, add vertical interest with trellises, arches, pergolas, and gazebos, and then plant climbing flowers (like clematis, climbing hydrangeas, or wisteria) and vines alongside them. "This is another way to achieve that eye-catching look that the English modern garden is known for," says Sears.

What Is the Hardest Plant to Keep Alive? The list of the hardest plants to take care of varies from gardener to gardener. However, the lists often feature Orchid, Gardenia, Fiddle Leaf Figs, and Boston Fern.

Lush and dense, English cottage gardens are a mix of two different looks. "English and cottage are kind of tributaries that fall under the same umbrella, but they're different," Lenhart says. "Cottage is sort of the more wild, diverse, unkempt version," he says. "English would be more formal.

'English country house style is about layering texture, pattern, color, and above all comfort,' says interior designer, furniture maker, and antique dealer Max Rollitt. 'It is also about decorating with antiques. Softening the interior architecture and adding a little wit.