Hardy’s Cottage, Dorset ©National Trust Images/Robert Morris

Featuring an abundant yet modest jumble of colorful flowers, the cottage
garden holds a special place in people’s hearts. The characteristic mix of flowers, vegetables, medicinal herbs, and fruit trees, has its roots in the medieval cottager’s plot. Over the centuries, however, the cottage garden evolved to represent a quintessentially English style. Gardener and author Claire Masset will explore the rich history of the British cottage garden, illustrating the evolution of this informal design style with its cheerful masses of flowers. She will showcase recreations of the 16th-century country housewife’s plot, the relaxed 18th-century writers’ gardens, the “picturesque” 18th-century cottages surrounded by old-fashioned blooms, and the romantic flower beds of the 19th-century Arts & Crafts movement. Even designed 20th-century gardens such as Hidcote and Sissinghurst incorporated informally styled cottage garden “rooms.” Masset will describe the building blocks of this cottage style, from popular flowers and trees to design principles. She will also explain how cottage gardens can be created in small, contemporary spaces. Finally, she will show how British cottage gardens came to embody a natural paradise still beloved by gardeners around the world.

Claire Masset has degrees in art and architectural history from St. Andress and Oxford. She is the publisher for the National Trust in charge of their gardening books and also writes for publications. Her journalism has appeared in Country Life, BBC Homes & Antiques, Period Living, Historic Gardens Review, Gardens Illustrated, Art Quarterly, and The English Garden magazine. Her books include the bestselling Secret Gardens of the National Trust, Roses and Rose Gardens, and Cottage Gardens. She recently won the Roger Deakin Award from the Society of Authors. She gardens in her spare time and lives in West Oxfordshire with her son and two cats.

Tickets: $15 members*; $25 non-members
*Membership discount applied automatically when logged into your Royal-Oak.org account