One of the most delightful of all landscaping designs is that of the cottage or informal garden. This garden’s beauty lies in its extravagance of hue and texture, in borders whose blurred softness bring all the dreamy charm of an Impressionistic painting into living color. In fact, the renowned Impressionist artist Claude Monet said, “My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.”

According to About Home, “One of the most famous English cottage gardens was designed by none other than the French Impressionist painter, Claude Monet …Monet is a particularly interesting case, being not only an artist who painted landscapes but also someone who was active in garden design. With Monet, the influence went both ways. English cottage gardens, with their wild abundance of rose bushes, perennial flowers, vine-covered arbors, and plants tumbling over walkways, are widely emulated in the U.S.”

Let’s consider a few of the primary features of a landscape design for cottage gardens. In contrast to the strong structural features of formal gardens, cottage gardens almost appear to have grown effortlessly, as each plant billows leisurely into its neighbor, creating a mass of color and textures to enchant the entire season.

“To possess a delightful cottage garden is to own art in its finest form, indeed!” 

In order to achieve this studied ease, there are no severe lines, but pathways, paved with natural materials such as gravel, pebbles or wood chips, meandering throughout the garden, providing soft perimeters along which plants may spill carelessly to further blur any strongly defined edges.

Plant selections encompass a diversity of possibilities, including flowering shrubs, whose height in borders and island beds furnish a perfect backdrop for lower growing perennials and annuals. Staggering perennials and annuals allows each specimen to contribute fully. Ornamental grasses offer a magical effect, and luxuriant roses bring romantic fragrance to passersby.

Focal points such as arbors or trellises offer the perfect structures on which creeping vines sprawl and enchant with vertical beauty. Secluded nooks for seating provide the ideal place to saturate oneself in the loveliness of nature. To possess a delightful cottage garden is to own art in its finest form, indeed! (Monet image via Wikimedia Commons)

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Recently awarded the “Best Of Houzz” 2015 Customer Service Award, the 35-year old full-service landscape design company, Aardweg Landscaping of Newtown Square, PA is widely admired by our Main Line Philadelphia residential clientele. Are you dreaming about having a Monetesque informal or cottage garden of your own as a front yard or backyard design? To schedule a complimentary on-site consultation, call Aardweg Landscaping at 610-355-0703, or send an email using the website Contact form.

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