Homegrown: Rediscovering cottage-style gardens

A slightly worn clipping has been resting in a little holder on my desk for a couple of years, long enough that I’ve completely forgotten its source, but not so long that I’ve forgotten the significance — a constant reminder to stay focused on climate-appropriate plants.

It is a photograph of a smart landscape design in San Francisco and is universal enough for any of our North Coast microclimates. The caption reads: “This is a richly colored border planting at a residence in Pacific Heights, San Francisco. This foliage border replaced an English flower garden look.”

There’s not a thing wrong with planting a cottage-style garden to indulge our fancy and grace our homes, but the one this foliage garden replaced demanded too much water and was wisely removed.

The new garden is still cottage style, minus an abundance of flowers. It features low mounds of ornamental grasses, a few coniferous shrubs, and mounding broadleaved plants, some cut through by spiky clumps of iris-like foliage, and small trees in the muted background. Flowers are not completely absent, however. Something resembling purple cone flower (Echinacea) or black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia) is just visible at the photo margins.

The overall impression is a lush, balanced grouping of many leaf shapes and hues. Yes, blossoms are at a minimum, but with no sacrifice of beauty.

For too many decades, we’ve relied on a version of the English cottage garden filled with ravishing flowering species that are more at home in regions with summer rainfall. It’s difficult to say goodbye to many old favorites, but it’s time — past time — to let go and to let retail nurseries know that we want to buy water-wise alternatives.

Changing what we plant does not mean giving up the style of a cottage garden. The new foliage border in my photo illustrates that point. It continues to follow this time-honored style: a mix of species, laid out casually, albeit in a straight line here, which is unlike traditional cottage gardens that were more of an informal jumble of edibles and herbs.

Focus on flowers

Most home gardeners who favor the simple cottage style live a far different life than the simple folk who originated the concept centuries ago. Those gardeners lived in simple homes or huts at a distance from the manor house, and their cultivated space produced food for their families. Any flowering plants would have been herbs for medicinal or household uses more than for decor. Their flowers were certainly not the voluptuous hybrids we know today.

Our own day-to-day reliance on “cottage” gardens has been for their ornamental value. We’ve chosen plants for their compatible colors, ravishing beauty, or even emotional associations, and generally we’ve restricted our edibles to their own quarters out of sight.

But times are changing and we may be reverting back to an older notion of mixing in vegetables, berries and fruit trees with ornamental plants streetside and introducing herbs as much for their decor and drought tolerance as for their culinary uses.

Our focus on flowers, which would have been the pursuit only of the wealthy in times long past, must now be practical, too, and not so water-demanding that they become a burden.

New is old again

As homeowners continue to remove lawns, our front yards are assuming more of the informal look associated with the cottage gardens of old. Planted areas aren’t enclosed by hedges or pickets to keep out free-roaming livestock but are defined by attractive borders or vine-covered fences along property lines.

Just as in times long past when cottage gardeners relied on native herbs — usually the only available plants — today’s gardeners are zeroing in on natives, too. And because space in suburban lots is at a minimum, more and more vegetables are showing up right alongside.

If it sounds like the cottage garden is getting too crowded, it’s good to remember that an informal look was also practical for reducing space where weeds could grow.

Another converted garden

It isn’t precisely the story of a cottage-garden conversion, but Master Gardener Steven Hightower has chronicled the ongoing transformation of a water-hungry Sonoma garden to a more climate-appropriate design on the September issue of www.sonomamastergardeners.org. As we should expect by now, there is no loss of beauty.

For information on training for the Master Gardener volunteer program, click on “Become a Master Gardener” on this same Web page or phone 565-2608. Wednesday, Sept. 30, is the deadline to apply for the 2010 January-April training.

A reminder: Anyone with a grocery list of plants for setting out this fall to replace a lawn will want to take advantage of the tremendous selection and bargain prices at the final two sales at the Sonoma County Jail Industries Plant Nursery and Farm, 2254 Ordinance Road at Airport Boulevard in Santa Rosa. Allow plenty of time for shopping from 9 to noon on Oct. 3 and again Oct. 24. Cash and checks only.

Rosemary McCreary, a Sonoma County gardener, gardening teacher and author, writes the weekly Homegrown column for The Press Democrat. Write to her at P.O. Box 910, Santa Rosa, 95402; or send fax to 664-9476.