Lesson Structure:  Cottage Garden Design BHT110

There are 8 comprehensive lessons

• What is a cottage garden?
• Guidelines for using plants in cottage gardens
• Understanding plant names
• The Binomial System
• Writing botanical names
• Cultivars
• Monocotyledons Vs Dicotyledons
• Plant Families
• Pronunciation of plant names
• Principles and elements of Landscape Design
• Plant review worksheets
• Naming the Plant
• Describing the Plant
• Illustrating the Plant
• Example of a plant identification worksheet

• Introduction
• The Miner’s Cottage Garden
• Botany and medicine
• Plants in Medicine in Ancient Times
• Greek and Roman Medicine
• The Revival of Medicine in the Renaissance
• The Rise of Modern Medicine and Botany
• Alchemy Comes of Age
• Man Makes His Own Cures
• Plants Make Better Doctors
• The Accidental Miracles
• Medicines from Other Lands
• Protecting Our Priceless Heritage

• Understanding Garden Rooms
• Tips for positioning garden features
• Frame Views
• The Design Procedure
• Landscape Graphics
• Scale
• What Paper and Pens to Use
• Lettering
• Plans and symbols
• Optional reading
• Pre-planning survey – Appraising the Site and Collecting Data
• Developing a Preliminary Concept Plan
• Developing a Final Plan

• Mix Them Up!
• The Bones of the Garden
• Selecting woody plants
• Designing a flower bed
• Correct choice of colours
• Correct timing
• Choosing compatible plants
• Perennnials
• What is a flowering perennial?
• Types of Perennial Gardens
• Secrets of success
• Maintenance hints
• Designing a perennial display
• Getting the most out of your flower bed
• Colour themes
• Soil pH explained
• Cottage garden plants
• Blue flowering cottage plants
• Silver or grey foliage plants
• Shade tolerant perennials
• More cottage garden plants
• Large flowering plants
• Using bulbs in a cottage garden
• Garden borders
• Meadows (planting in lawns)
• Rockery gardens
• Woodland gardens
• Container growing
• Some suggested bulbs, corms and tubers
• Bulbs which grow in shade
• Scented plants
• Night scented plants
• Plants with fragrant flowers
• Fragrant foliage
• Climbers, creepers and twiners
• Shrubs for cottage gardens
• Herbs in the perennial border
• Perennials in wild flower meadows
• Maintaining herbaceous borders
• Some evergreen perennials and other perennials and suggested uses
• Supporting herbaceous plants
• Thyme
• Lavender
• Scented pelagoniums and geraniums
• Colourful year-round foliage
• Selecting annuals
• Why Use annuals?
• Types of annual plants
• Selecting annuals for different heights: Low growing (less than 30cm), Medium (30-60cm), Tall growing (greater than 60 cm)
• Scented annuals
• Scented foliage
• Colourful foliage
• Establishing annuals
• Annuals from seed, seedlings, containers
• Bedding plants

• Shade Trees
• Benefits of shade trees
• Where to plant the shade tree
• Design elements
• Colour and garden design
• Using colour in the garden
• Landscape plans: site plan, concept plan, final plan, planting plan, other plans
• The design procedure
• Plant application
• Copying nature
• Creating landscape effects
• Companion planning
• Repellent plants
• Soil improving plants

• Garden features
• Walls and fencing for cottage gardens
• Garden art
• The history of sundials
• Furnishing the garden
• Paths
• General guidelines for path design
• Gravel and bark paths
• Barriers and walls
• Methods of training on a trellis
• Outdoor living areas
• A general comparison between materials used in outdoor furniture
• Garden structures
• Pergolas, pleached alleys and arbours
• Hedges
• Pools and ponds – Water garden design
• Water effects
• Water garden practicalities
• Plants for water gardens

• Changes to cottage garden style
• How to make a courtyard more exciting
• Colourful year-round foliage
• Ornamental grasses
• Planning for perfection

• Coherence or Contrast
• Making garden beds – the variables
• Using ferns in shaded areas
• The landscape industry: costing work
• The cost of employing labour

Learning Goals:Cottage Garden Design BHT110

1. Describe the concept of a cottage garden (Part A)
2. Describe the concept of a cottage garden (Part B)
3. Prepare concept plans for cottage gardens
4. Prepare planting designs for cottage gardens incorporating primarily flowers
5. Prepare planting designs for cottage gardens incorporating a wide variety of plants
6. Plan the incorporation of appropriate non-living landscape features in a cottage garden
7. Describe contemporary concepts in cottage garden design
8. Prepare a detailed design for a cottage garden

• Practicals:

  • Here are just some of the things you will be doing:
  • Explain the concept of a cottage garden, both in historical and modern contexts.
  • Explain the influence of one famous landscaper on cottage gardens.
  • Explain the relevance of garden design concepts to cottage gardens, including:
    • Unity
    • Balance
    • Proportion
    • Harmony
    • Contrast
    • Rhythm
    • Line
    • Form
    • Mass
    • Space
    • Texture
    • Colour
    • Tone.
  • Analyse the designs of three cottage gardens inspected by you.
  • Describe the steps involved, accompanied by a sequence of illustrations, in the planning process for a cottage garden.
  • Develop a checklist of pre-planning information required for a proposed cottage garden on a specific site.
  • Compile pre-planning information for a specific site, for a proposed cottage garden, through an interview with a potential client, and surveying the site.
  • Prepare drawings to represent landscape features on a cottage garden plan, including trees, shrubs, herbs, walls, rocks, buildings and other landscape features.
  • Analyse the designs of three different cottage gardens, inspected by you.
  • Prepare three different cottage garden concept plans for the same site, to satisfy given design specifications and pre-planning information.
  • Prepare a plant collection of fifty-cottage garden plants, which includes:
    • A photo, drawing or pressed specimen of each plant
    • Plant names (scientific and common)
    • Cultural details
    • Uses/applications in garden design.
  • Prepare a planting plan for a garden bed of 20 to 30 square metres in a cottage garden style, including:
    • A sketch plan
    • A plant list.
  • Design a perennial border of 30 metres in length, in an appropriate cottage garden style.
  • Design a 50 to 100 square metre garden bed, which incorporates companion planting principles.
  • Evaluate the companion planting design in a cottage garden visited by you.
  • Design a colour themed garden, such as a white garden, for an area of 200 square metres or less, to suit a proposed garden redevelopment, on a site visited by you.
  • Describe briefly, different non-living features that may be included in a cottage garden, including:
    • Seating alternatives
    • Bird baths
    • Sun dials
    • Fountains
    • Statues
    • Pergolas
    • Gazebos
    • Fencing
    • Ponds
    • Weather vanes.
  • Determine criteria for inclusion of different landscape features in a cottage garden, including:
    • Gazebos
    • Ornaments
    • Arbors
    • Tub plants
    • Water features
    • Paths.
  • Compare the characteristics, including:
    • Suitability for a cottage garden
    • Cost
    • Availability
    • Longevity
    • Appearance
    • Maintenance, of different landscape materials.
  • Explain the use of plant sculpting, including topiary and hedging, in cottage garden designs; including references to:
    • Ways of creating it
    • Ways of using it
    • Maintenance.
  • Analyse, in a report including photographs, the use of different structures as features, in the designs of two different cottage gardens, visited by you.
  • Prepare three cottage garden concept plans, one each for different specified sites, which incorporate different types of features sympathetic to cottage or heritage gardens.
  • Develop a brief for a cottage garden design, for the redevelopment of an established garden around an old building in your locali

  ge gardens visited by you.

• Compile pre-planning information for a specified cottage garden development.
• Prepare detailed plans for a cottage garden (following industry standards), including:
  • Detailed plans

Materials lists

• Costings.
• Explain the reasoning behind a cottage garden designed by you.

Your tutor for this course is:Susan Stephenson BSc in Applied Plant Biology (Botany) Univ. London 1983. City and guilds: Garden Centre Management, Management and Interior Decor (1984) Management qualifications in training with retail store. Diploma in Hort level 2 (RHS General) Distinction.  Susan Stephenson is a passionate and experienced horticulturist and garden designer. She has authored three books, lectures at 2 Further and Higher Education Colleges, teaching people of all ages and backgrounds about the wonders of plants and garden design, and tutors many students by correspondence from all over the world.

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