The Cottage Garden Movement is an informal English garden style and reform movement that emerged in the 1870s as a deliberate reaction against the rigid, geometric bedding schemes of Victorian formal gardening. It favors dense, seemingly casual plantings that mix ornamental and edible plants for charm and grace rather than grandeur. Its two leading exponents, the writer and gardener William Robinson and the designer Gertrude Jekyll, worked together for decades; their garden designs became closely tied to Arts and Crafts style houses, and the movement is often traced to Robinson's 1870 book The Wild Garden. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
OriginTraced to 1870s England, sparked by William Robinson's 1870 book The Wild Garden and carried forward through his fifty-year working friendship with Gertrude Jekyll, whom he met in 1875. 2 FAQs
Who were the leading figures of the cottage garden movement?
William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll, who worked together for decades.
The two leading exponents of the Cottage Garden Movement were the writer and gardener William Robinson and the designer Gertrude Jekyll, who worked together for decades after meeting in 1875. The movement is often traced to Robinson's 1870 book The Wild Garden, and it favors dense, seemingly casual plantings that mix ornamental and edible plants, in deliberate reaction against the rigid, geometric bedding schemes of Victorian formal gardening.
Connections
Associated With
Cottagecore's romanticized rural imagery draws directly on the older cottage garden ideal.
Source Cottagecore (Wikipedia)
The Cottage Garden Movement is a historical style and philosophy within the gardening hobby, championed by figures such as Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson.
Jekyll and Robinson worked together for over fifty years and their designs defined the movement's look
Source Cottage Garden (Wikipedia)
The book is treated as the movement's founding text
Source Cottage Garden (Wikipedia)
Robinson's 1870 book The Wild Garden is treated as the movement's founding text
Source Cottage Garden (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Cottage Garden (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationIntroductory section
English in origin, it depends on grace and charm rather than grandeur and formal structure.
Development subsection
Robinson's The Wild Garden, published in 1870, contained in the first edition an essay on "The Garden of British Wild Flowers"
- Associated With: Gertrude Jekyll, Development section
- Associated With: William Robinson, Historical Emergence and Reaction section
- Associated With: Publication of The Wild Garden, Key Dates section
View the Source 2. William Robinson (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationRelationship with Jekyll, Life and career sectionQuote, Relationship with Jekyll, Life and career section
Mr William Robinson chose as his work in life to make better known the treasures that were lying neglected, and at the same time to overthrow the feeble follies of the "bedding" system.
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