bungalow Gardens
The bungalow garden custom is one that is peculiarly English in character . The old - humankind appealingness of the cottager ’s plot owed little or nothing to any of the major developments in garden purpose or landscape architecture . The English cottage garden just ‘ happen ’ and its chief attraction lies in the effect of ordered chaos that it produce .
Like the wild garden and herbaceous borders of William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll , the cottage garden is , to a great extent ‘ natural ’ but , as in the former illustration , nature take a good deal of taming and direction before the trust essence of studied negligence could be accomplish .
The flower of the cottage garden cover a catamenia that roughly coincided with the Victorian era , give or take a ten or so at either end . Its main gadget characteristic were color and fragrance coupled with a joyous abandon that suggested nature feed scream .
It had few permanent features of real grandness — no stone figure or towering coniferous tree , no exotic trees and shrubs , while for hedges , the quickthorn , beech or hornbeam of adjacent fields and tilth could usually be used .
From transparent economic necessity , most cottager had to be self - supporting in yield and vegetables . Families were with child so that it is not surprising that a major part of the usable garden was devoted to these food for thought crops .
But this did not prevent the cottager or his wife from create the traditional mint of color with what remained . He would often grow , as well , flowers for pick and herbs for the kitchen in the veg patch . Many of our favorite present - day flowers achieved their initial popularity in the cottagers ’ garden . pink , wallflowers , sweet williams , stock , pot marigolds , and love - in - a - mist are a few that come first to listen . There are countless others .
Today , the true cottager are quickly disappearing . They move out of their cottages as soon as they can into more easily - run flat and mansion . Their plaza is being contain by a unexampled kind of cottage - dweller , the week - remainder countrymen and nation commuter train , for whom the peace of the countryside holds great attractions .
We can not put the clock back , but there is no reason why the contemporary cottage garden should not reflect the onetime - world charm of its predecessors while making use , at the same clip , of the new and improved diversity of older plants as well as some of those plants that have become more recently uncommitted .
Simplicity must always be the keynote of the well - designed cottage garden . This can be intimately achieved by a well‑ chosen mixture of suitable plants , by unpretentious innovation and appurtenance and by the use of goods and services of old - fashioned climb plants to cover walls and fences .
Spring
Spring is a season of major interest in the cottage garden , beginning with the growth of the snowdrops and winter aconite . The yellow buttercup - similar flush of the latter , with their attractive green neck ruff , start to open during the first balmy spells in January . wood anemone , which come a small later , look best naturalized in supergrass . A position under sure-enough fruit tree — often to be found in the cottage garden — suit them best . Both aconites and snowdrops come freely if left undisturbed .
These will be nearly followed by the early Narcissus pseudonarcissus and many kinds of primula . Although few metal money of the latter were have intercourse to the cottagers by their right name calling , live on specimens of many present - Clarence Day gem were found growing in bungalow garden by flora - lovers interested in their selection .
` Kinlough Beauty ’ , a lustrous pink hybrid ofPrimula juliana , is one of these . It was formerly cognize as ‘ Irish Polly ’ . Its Primula polyantha - type blooms would never win award for size , but are attractive and have a central blotch of white surrounding a chickenhearted center .
Cottage Maid ’ , with more guarded coloring , is somewhat like . There are also a number of lavender and pink colored primrose , formerly widely grown and including Refine des Violettes ’ , ‘ Sweet Lavender ’ and ‘ Rosy Morn ’ that are becoming increasingly rarefied in polish .
Even more typical , perhaps , of the cottage garden are the richly - gloss , amber - faced polyanthus . Fortunately , it is still comparatively prosperous to obtain seed of these which can be sown in a cool nursery in February to produce full - sized anthesis plants for putting out in fall , or sow in out of doors in May . The plants from the later sowing will be a good deal low and only a balance will produce flowers the following outpouring . The true amber - spike Primula polyantha or primrose is a deep mahogany tree - Bolshevik with petals narrowly margined with atomic number 79 .
One early on - flowering leaping shrub that was widely grow in bungalow garden was our native mezereon , Daphne mezereum . Itstill retain its former popularity and although sometimes short - live , provides one of the most welcome sights and scents of winter with its smart cherry flowers , smelling of hyacinths , that constellate the simple branchlet and arm in February . Less often picture is the ashen form , alba .
Daphne mezereumis easy lift from seed , if you’re able to rescue the red fruits — which , by the bye are vicious to humanity — from the birds . It is a right idea to have a few seedling plant
1 coming along , to act as substitute
2 when the aged plants die off .
There is a whole mathematical group of tulips that have earned the suffix ‘ cottage ’ . These cottage tulips , which are marvellous - stem with pointed petals , flower in May a small in approach of the Darwins . They have , however , no more special claim to be grown on the cottage plot than any of the others , especially the early - flowering species such as the lady tulip , Tulipa clusiana , the brilliant scarletT. fosteriana‘Red Emperor ’ or the beautifully - formed waterlily tulip , T. kaufmanniana .
Crown imperial(Fritillaria imperialis)is a springiness bulb formerly closely associated with the cottage garden that has been elevate out of its former humble post by its present - day scarceness note value . Crown imperials seem to expand on disuse and some of the all right clump are receive in untidy corners of previous gardens in places where the crotch and hoe rarely penetrate .
They are certainly neither as common , nor as varied in colour as they were when they formed a major component of almost every seventeenth century flower agreement , if paintings of the full point are anything to go by . Today , our option is qualify to yellow , and orange , although there were once also white-hot , bluish - purpleness and spotty diversity .
So many of these former cottage garden flowers have won general regard that we are apt to overlook their low origin until their pop names bring them to beware . This is true of the lungworts or pulmonarias , that cottage dweller grew and transport in under a variety of championship that include boys and girls , soldier and sailors , spotted dog and hundreds and thousands .
These are all different names forPulmonaria officinaliswhose spotted leaves and pinkish - and - blue blossom make their appearance towards the middle or end of March . Today , we have the choice of several garden specie : P.angustifoliawith its sky - dismal flowers and narrow green leaves;P. rubrawhich , in favored situations will open its coral blooms as early as January andP.saccharatawhich , with its white - marbleized green leaves and rose - pink to blue prime come close to the older specie . All the lungworts make first - form earth covering . They boom equally well in sun or partial shade .
Summer
As springiness progress towards summertime , the cottage garden provide a continuous succession of color and fragrance . Erysimum cheiri , often assuming their dependable perennial theatrical role and coming up year after year are followed by the sweet clove - scented dianthus — the bungalow pinks and clove Dianthus caryophyllus .
Here again the present - day nurseryman has a much wider choice where the latter plants are concerned . stake in the old laced pinks has revived and forms are now obtainable that heyday continuously throughout the summer . London Poppet ’ is white , tinged with pink and laced with crimson - red ; Laced Hero ’ has great white flower laced with purpleness and a central oculus of drinking chocolate - Brown University .
The old garden pink have a scant unfolding time of year , but give a generous display of odoriferous heyday . Mrs Sinkins ’ , a favourite white of recollective standing is still among the most wide - grown of these ; there is now a pink ‘ Mrs Sinkins ’ as well . Other good whites include ‘ Iceberg ’ and ‘ White Ladies ’ ; Inchmery ’ is a touchy shell pink of great quality while ‘ Priory Pink ’ has a distinctive mauve tinge to its flowers .
The name of Allwood Brothers and pink are much synonymous and the modernistic gardener can call upon the great number of hardy hybrid pinks(allwoodii)for whose development andintroduction Allwoods were responsible . These coalesce all the virtues ( including fragrance ) of the older forms with great vigour and a unfolding season that lasts from springtime to early autumn .
herb
Among the major attracter of the cottage garden in summer are the fragrant herbaceous plant that allow for material for sachets andpotpourris , as well as for usance in the kitchen . Lavender , of course , is the most wide - fully grown of these . Lavandula silicais the old English or Mitcham lavender , name for its wise , substantial fragrancy . Today , there is a full selection of cultivar of differing habit and people of colour but none of these can quite compare with the honest-to-goodness - fashioned kind where perfume is have-to doe with . Munstead Dwarf ’ and Twickel Purple ’ are stocky in habit with spikes of a really intense blue;L. s. roseais an unusual lilac - pink miscellanea , while the dwarf conformation Hidcote ’ is the deepest imperial - blue air of all the lavenders .
Rosemary , as well as being a useful seasoning for roast volaille or veal makes a decorative small garden bush . Very older plants can still be find growing by cottage doors ; constitute to begin with for convenience of pick and now serve up in a more decorative content . Rosmarinus officinalisis the vulgar culinary kind but for more decorative effects , there are a number of others , including that strange vertical form , ‘ Miss Jessup ’s Variety ’ which makes a sylphlike gray-haired - light-green column that is studded with pallid naughty flowers in April and May . ` Benenden Blue ’ , from Corsica with very narrow leaves and deep aristocratic blossom has an interesting , compendious , white-hot - blossom human body .
Artemisia abrotanum , know variously as fellow ’s making love , Artemisia abrotanum and honest-to-god man , is a herbaceous plant that must have feel a place in almost every cottage garden . Its aromatic foliage has always been enjoy by country folk and we find it planted in strategic situation , at the joint of paths or by the kitchen door , where a twig can be plucked in clear and beat out to release its unmistakable aroma . For the modern cottage garden there are several other metal money of artemisia that now share in the popularity generate by the current vogue for grey and ash gray - leaved flora
A.arborescensis noteworthy for the ticklish filigree of its silvered leave of absence ; A.nutansis a compact and elegant shrub with delicately divided foliage fluent - white colouration . Good for assort with them are some of the recurrent forms , such as the lacy - leave ` Lambrook Silver ’ and ‘ Silver Queen ’ with its narrow willow - similar foliation .
All the culinary and medicinal herb , let in stack , thyme , beaked parsley , tailwort , sage , bergamot and angelica are very suited to the cottage garden and the plantsman can enjoy them even more by growing decorative garden form in the beds and borders or , where thyme and some of the mints are bear on , in chap in path and paving .
There are several mints deserving of a office in the cosmetic garden . The variegate orchard apple tree mint and the prostrate peppermint - scentedMentha requienii , whose obtuse mat of sorry green leafage come to no trauma when trodden underfoot , can both be used in this fashion .
Thymes are obtainable in dandy variety . The sonant lavender flowers of the lemon thyme , Thymus citriodorus`Silver Queen ’ make an attractive contrast to the silver - variegate foliage . For planting in paving the prostrate forms ofT. serpyllumare useful . One of the most interesting of these isT. s.lanuginosus , which quickly organize a dim rug of grey woolly foliage .
It would seem that almost any flora with the suffix ‘ sweet ’ has affiliations with the bungalow garden . Sweet peas , dulcet williams , sugared sultan and seraphic rocket are just a few of the bungalow flowers that have earned this name , probably because fragrance play so important a part in regulate the cottage dweller ’s alternative of industrial plant .
Roses
It is doubtful whether he would have had much time for many of the modern , practically scentless blush wine in spite of their great size of it and keen form . sweet-flavored briar , moss and cabbage roses would have been more to his liking and it is not surprising that many of the old blush wine that are today enjoy such a welcome renaissance , should have been rescued from oblivion by their uncovering in these surroundings .
On the walls the cottager ’s choice might well have been the great maiden ’s blush , with its grey - unripened foliation and quilted pinkish blooms , or another old favorite ‘ Caroline Testout ’ , with its loose - petalled deep pink cabbage flowers . Climbers On the walls of a bungalow , there is no need for formalities . climb plants can be permitted to scat riot and entwine one with the other . This will particularly suit clematis such asClematis montana rubensand many of the vigorousjackmaniitypes . The chicken superstar ofJasminum nudiflorumwill brighten the walls in winter and in summertime the more rampant and sweetly - scentedJ. officinale , the sweet-smelling jessamine , will take over .
Other distinctive cottage climbers are the sweetly aromatize meeting house , whose mod garden forms are in striking contrast to our native woodbine , andLathyrus latifolius , the everlasting pea which miss the fragrance of the yearly variety show , but which place on a magnificent show each twelvemonth .
care of the distinctive bungalow garden should not entail a great deal of work . Normally , the plant are so closely packed together that weeds get little chance to take grasp . For the contemporary bungalow , grass is almost sealed to act a more of import part than formerly but by and large speaking , the lawns will be comparatively small and it should be possible to maintain it in first - charge per unit consideration at all times .
