Like so many things in the garden, the cottage garden has also undergone change and transformation over time – but it is still in fashion!
“With the return to gardening in harmony with nature, which at some point became the term “organic” or “eco”, one might think back to this original concept of gardening,” says organic master gardener Erwin Seidemann. “Useful things harmonize with beautiful things in small spaces. Vegetables next to fruit and flowers in an orderly wilderness result in a highly harmonious picture.
The care
… used to belong exclusively to the tasks of the farmers. They brought everything useful for cooking, for the medicine chest and “for the soul” near the house. Knowledge was gained that is of benefit to us today. Experiences were written down and kept, tradition was given the best care. In defiance of all fashion trends in gardening, it has survived for centuries in its aesthetic lack of planning. Erwin Seidemann: “Cottage gardens are the symbol of mixed cultures. They support the coexistence of plants that get along particularly well with each other. Keeping order is often difficult. You have many things on your little finger, put them off on loose days like the ice saints or turn around The famous green thumb is the most important tool of the cottage gardener.”
What are the cornerstones?
The wooden fence in its inimitable style is one of them. Very few people have the gift of constructing something like this, mostly without nails and screws, in wicker work without any treatment of the wood. Buxus is considered a border plant for the individual areas. Sure, the box tree moth has eradicated hedges of Buxus in recent years. Nevertheless, there is hope that he will return to our gardens and that the moth will be finished off. With natural control methods (finely ground calcium carbonate or a bacterium called Xentari as a natural enemy) the borer can be tackled and this traditional plant can be helped to continue to exist.
Typical cottage garden flowers
… with benefits for humans, insects, honey bees, wild bees, whatever creeps and flees: delphinium, bellflower, thistle, Jacob’s ladder, poppy, iris, yarrow, coneflower and coneflower, aster, but also early flowering bulbous plants such as daffodils, wild tulips, grape hyacinths. Roses do their bit for the beauty, the scent and the grace of the special. The decisive factor is the appearance that changes from year to year, which dahlias, gladioli and many summer flowers with additional benefits such as marigolds, ranunculus, cosmea and Co. provide. Herbs such as lavender, rosemary, blue flowering hyssop as a bee magnet, feverfew, lemon balm, mint and thyme or sage are impulses for tea kitchens, but also for further processing of all kinds.
No cottage garden without fruit
Erwin Seidemann knows more: “What would a cottage garden be without its fruit. Blackberries and raspberries along the fence, nowadays kiwis, but also dwarf fruits such as apples, cherries, pears, etc., which are slender and slender, but lucrative to snack on. And without strawberries, a cottage garden cannot be described as such. Perennial vegetables such as rhubarb, and recently also green asparagus and artichokes ensure moments of enjoyment, but all of the house guests in our salad bowl and our vegetable pan also come together. Of course, always sensibly planted according to good neighborliness. Kitchen herbs in a row and limbs, in between salads of all kinds, so that not everything has to be harvested at once: cabbage vegetables, but also peppers, tomatoes, possibly with a small roof, cucumber and zucchini in the corner of the already rotted compost heap – everything has its place!
Cottage gardens convey feelings and thoughts of the “good old days”, let’s give this thought space in our own or in the “allotment garden”, wherever there is space. Care yes, but every move is pure joy at the end of the day.”
More information regarding nature and the environment:www.seidemann.at
More reports:www.meinbezirk.at/westliches-mittelgebirge
