Cottage Garden Design

Home Studies: Traditional Gardens, Cottage Gardens

Learn to design a cottage garden, applying broad concepts and principles loosely or rigidly to create a landscape sympathetic to a period in history and/or style of architecture.

This course involves using heritage or old world plants and features (eg. formal to semi formal; designs, arches, arbors, statues, gazebos, picket fencing, etc.

Who is this course for?

• Home Gardeners  who want to create a better Cottage Garden (and avoid costly mistakes that come with not fully knowing how to do the best job)
• Professional Landscapers who wish to better understand how to create this particular type of garden, and in doing so, expand and improve services they can offer a client

Lesson Structure

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Introduction to Cottage Gardens.
   • What is a Cottage Garden
   • Components
   • Guidelines for Using Cottage Plants
   • Plant Naming
   • Principles of Landscape Design
   • Preplanning Information
2. History of Cottage Gardens
   • 19th century Cottage Gardens
   • History of Cottage Gardening
   • Case Study
3. Design Techniques and Drawing Plans
   • Garden Rooms
   • Positioning Garden Features
   • Framing Views
   • Drawing the Plan
   • Design Procedure
4. Plants for Cottage Gardens
   • Mixing Plants
   • Designing a Garden Bed
   • Perennial Plants
   • Designing a Perennial Display or Border
   • Bulbs
   • Scented Geraniums
   • Lavender
   • Other Cottage Garden Plants
5. Planting Design in Cottage Gardens
   • Using Colour in theGarden
   • Shade Trees
   • Repellant Herb Plants
   • Companion Planting
   • Planting Design
6. Landscape Features and Components
   • Walls and Fencing
   • Pickets
   • Woven Wire Fencing
   • Stick Fencing
   • Stone Walls
   • Garden Art: sculpture, pottery, architecture, wall plaques, sundials, weather vanesfeature tiles, etc.
   • Furnishing; outdoor furniture
   • Paths, Gravel, Coloured Gravels, bark, brick, cobbles, etc
   • Guidelines for Path Design
   • Seating
   • Arches
   • Barriers and Walls
7. Cottage Gardens Today
   • Where are Cottage Gardens Appropriate
   • Making a Courtyard More Exciting
   • Planning For Perfection
   • Old (disappearing) Garden Skills
8. Special Assignment
   • Coherence and Contrast
   • Evaluating Cottage Garden Designs
   • Design of A Complete Garden.

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Aims

• Explain the concept of a cottage garden.
• Prepare concept plans for cottage gardens.
• Prepare planting designs for cottage gardens.
• Plan the incorporation of appropriate non-living landscape features in a cottage garden.
• Prepare a detailed design for a cottage garden.

What You Will Do

• 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 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 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 locality.
• Analyse the designs of two different well established cottage 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 you designed.

 PLANTING FOR A COTTAGE GARDEN

A well-designed cottage garden is a rich tapestry of colours and textures. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t happen by chance; each plant should be carefully chosen for its individual qualities, as well as its overall effect in the garden bed.

When choosing plants for a cottage garden, think of them as different types, each with a special niche in the garden. A well-balanced design will include plants from each of the following groups:

Annuals – These fast-growing colourful plants only last one season, but they’re very good for giving quick cover in new beds, filling in gaps, and adding colour to established beds.

Bulbs – Grow these under deciduous trees or in garden beds. They require little maintenance and will reappear each year.

Herbaceous perennials – These plants die back each winter, then reappear and flower the following spring and summer. They include many of the old-fashioned cottage plants.

Climbers – These can be productive (passionfruit, kiwifruit) or decorative (sweet pea, climbing roses) and are good for screening walls and fences, or used as cover for structures such as arbors or pergolas.

Shrubs – These are good for screening, and many can be clipped into hedges. They provide a framework for larger beds, creating a presence when other plants in the bed die down in winter.

Trees – At least one small-growing tree should be included in the cottage garden. They provide a vertical accent and summer shade. They can be purely decorative (silver birches, crepe myrtles) or productive (small-growing fruit trees).

Once you’ve chosen your main framework plants of perennials, shrubs and trees, also look at how you can include plants from the following groups to give your garden that distinctive cottage garden flavour:

• Scented plants – A cottage garden wouldn’t be completed without scented plants.
• Self-seeding plants – A number of annuals and perennials freely self-seed and help give the garden a natural, slightly wild appearance. They can be a nuisance in more formal, controlled designs.
• Foliage plants – These are excellent as contrasts and as focal points.
• Groundcovers – These may be annual or perennial plants. They are good for filling in gaps, suppressing weeds and softening edges of garden beds and paths.
• Herbs – Many of these useful plants have attractive foliage colours and textures, and are either grown in a separate herb bed or mixed in with ornamental plants.

FREQUENT QUESTIONS

Why Choose This Course

• Unique course materials (developed by our staff) and more current than some colleges (many reviewed annually); as a result, ACS graduates can be more up to date.
• We work hard to help you understand and remember it, develop an ability to apply it in the real world, and build networks with others who work in this field (It’s more than just serving up a collection of information –if all you want is information, buy a book; but if you want an education, that takes learning to a whole new level).
• Start whenever you want, study at your own pace, study anywhere
• Don’t waste time and money traveling classes
• We provide more choices–courses are written to allow you more options to focus on parts of the subject that are of more interest to you; a huge range of elective subjects are offered that don’t exist elsewhere.
• Tutors are accessible (more than elsewhere) – academics work in both the UK and Australia, 5 days a week, 16 hours a day. Answering emails and phone calls from students are top priority.
• We treat students as individuals –don’t get lost in a crowd. Our tutors communicate with you one to one.
• Extra help at no extra cost if needed. When you find something you cannot do, we help you through it or will provide another option.
• Support after you finish a course –We can advise about getting work, starting  business, writing a CV, etc. We can promote students and their businesses through our extensive profile on the internet. Graduates who ask will be helped.
• Support from a team of a dozen professional horticulturists, living in different parts of the UK, and in both temperate and tropical climate zones of Australia.

About ACS

ACS was started in 1979 by John Mason, who at the time was a gardening author, horticultural consultant and lecturer in horticulture at several colleges across Melbourne (in Australia).  Over the summer that year John discovered that there were thousands of applicants going to be turned away from horticulture courses at Burnley Horticultural College (now Melbourne University). There were simply too few courses being offered for the number of people wanting to study horticulture in Australia. This situation prompted a move to establish a correspondence course at Burnley; but after months of unsuccessful lobbying for support from government; John wrote a course, and with help from a colleague at Council of Adult Education, marketed it.

Standards were originally set in line with what were seen to be the standards of Australia's top horticultural college; and over the years, those standards have never been reduced. This makes our courses longer and more demanding than some other colleges; but it has also led to us building a credibility that stands tall in the horticulture industry across the world. 

In the early 1990's John started visiting the UK and becoming involved with the horticulture industry there. Around the mid 1990's ACS began offering RHS courses, and in 2003, John was formally recognised for his contribution to British Horticulture by being made a fellow of the Institute of Horticulture. ACS, as a school, established an office and staff in the UK in 2001, and has expanded considerably since then. Today it is formally affiliated with five other colleges in the UK (including Warwickshire College); all of who license and deliver ACS courses. 

A team of leading horticulturists work for the school's horticulture department, including 12 faculty members in both the UK and Australia

How You Study

• As soon as you enroll, we send an email to explain it all.
• We direct you to a short orientation video (downloadable over the internet) to watch, where our principal introduces you to how the course works, and how you can access all sorts of support services
• You are either given a code to access your course online, or sent out a CD or course materials through the mail (or by courier).
• Work through lessons one by one, each lesson typically having four parts:
  • An aim -which tells you what you should be achieving in the lesson
  • Reading -notes written and regularly revised by our academic staff
  • Set Task(s) -These are practicals, research or other experiential learning tasks that strengthen and add to what you have been reading
  • Assignment -By answering questions, submitting them to a tutor, then getting feedback from the tutor, you confirm that you are on the right track, but more than that, you are guided to consider what you have been studying in different ways, broadening your perspective and reinforcing what you are learning about
  • Other - Your work in a course rarely stops at just the above four parts. Different courses and different students will need further learning experiences. Your set task or assignment may lead to other things, interacting with tutors or people in industry, reviewing additional reference materials or something else. We treat every student as an individual and supplement their learning needs as the occasion requires.
• We provide access to and encourage you to use a range of supplementary services including an online student room, including online library; student bookshop, newsletters, social media etc.
• We provide a "student manual", that is a quick solution to most problems that might occur

Recognition

• ACS has a highly respected international profile: by employers and academics alike. People are more aware of us than many other distance education schools –just do a search for “horticulture distance education courses” and see what comes up on the internet; or search for ACS Distance education on Facebook or Linked in, and see how many connections we have compared to other colleges.
• Recognised by International Accreditation and Recognition Council
• ACS has been educating people around the world since 1979
• Over 100,000 have now studied ACS courses, across more than 150 countries
• Formal affiliations with colleges in five countries
• A faculty of over 40 internationally renowned academics –books written by our staff used by universities and colleges around the world.

Extra Books or Reference Materials

• The course provides you with everything that you need to complete it successfully.
• Assignments may ask you to look for extra information (eg. by contacting nurseries, visiting gardens or searching the internet), but our school's resources and tutors are always available as a back up. If you hit a "roadblock", we can quickly send you additional information or provide expert advice over the phone or email; to keep you moving in your studies.
• Some students choose to buy additional references, to take their learning beyond what is essential for the course. If a student wants to buy books, we operate an online bookshop offering ebooks written by staff at the school. Student discounts are available if you are studying with us. The range of e books available is being expanded rapidly, with at least one new ebook being written and published by our staff every month. See www.acsebook.com

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