The Cottage Garden Society

If you're interested in plants, or enjoy exchanging gardening ideas and experience with fellow gardeners - why not become a Cottage Gardener?

You don't have to live in a cottage, or even in the country! Cottage gardens can be created in the small plots of modern houses, or the narrow gardens of older terraces - the informal style lends itself to any situation. Cottage gardens reflect your own personal mix of plants - whether flowers, fruit or vegetables. The emphasis is on the year-round pleasure of enjoying their form, flowers and scent - not to mention picking your own salads, herbs, fruit and vegetables. Why bother with the drudge of maintaining lawns and regimented borders - especially with problems of climate change?

The Cottage Garden Society (CGS) is an informal, friendly society of approx. 6,000 members, in many countries, bringing together amateurs and professionals who share an enthusiasm for this type of gardening. Founded in 1982 when cottage garden plants were 'unfashionable' and a whole range of plants like Dianthus (pinks) were no longer commercially available, the CGS was instrumental in protecting some disappearing flora. Since then, cottage garden flowers have become more readily available, but a few still have to be searched for in specialist nurseries. Gardeners are generous souls and are invariably willing to help one another.

Membership costs just £9 for a single subs. (UK) which brings you: a quarterly magazine (50pp of articles, letters, book reviews etc); access to our annual Seed Exchange; regional groups to join with their own programmes; an annual listing of members' Gardens to Visit; and a variety of publications to help you achieve your own ideal garden. More details of all these are on the website.

Gardens now provide vital habitats for wildlife, as a result of changes in farming methods, increased use of chemicals, destruction of orchards, hedges and ponds. By growing simpler, traditional cottage garden flowers such as lavender, thyme and other herbs, foxgloves, pinks and single varieties of flowers, rather than modern, double-flowered varieties, we can help to maintain a variety of birds, butterflies, insects etc. Modern hybrid flowers are often sterile and produce no nectar for insects, who have an important role in pollinating our fruit and flowers. Bees in particular need gardeners help in providing nectar-rich flowers - bumble bees are especially affected by the loss of food plants, and their numbers have declined. Other beneficial insects, birds, frogs, toads, hedgehogs also contribute to our gardens in helping to keep down insect pests, slugs and snails. By encouraging biodiversity in our gardens, we can help maintain the precarious balance of nature.

In 2007 the CGS celebrated its 25th anniversary with a members' weekend in the Cotwolds, visiting gardens, and meeting our new President - Nick Hamilton of Barnsdale Gardens. In 2008 our stand at the RHS Tatton Show won a Gold Medal - go to the newspage for pictures. Wonder what 2009 will bring . . . ?