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An old-fashioned cottage garden adorns this thatched-roof potting and gardening shed.

Foxglove is a must for any heirloom garden.

A formal Boxwood hedge, ornamental trees and vines unify ‘house to garden.’

Carefully arranged perennials create a ‘colorful harmony.’

Foxglove and Gallardia are perennial favorites.

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Guiding principals for an old-fashioned garden: Unity of house and garden Nature as a primary source of inspiration Use of local materials and native plants Inclusion of water: pond, bird-bath or fountain Relaxed plantings Use of plants for structure Decorative objects such as; pergolas, arbors, trellises, and pottery Choosing plants for foliage texture and fall color Some perennials for an old-fashioned garden: Aster Bellflower Bleeding-heart Daylily Dianthus Foxglove Hosta Iris Peony Roses (shrub and climbing) Trillium Woodruff Violets

In the world of American gardening, the fifty years between the Civil War and World War I were a time of tremendous change.

Seed companies and nurseries proliferated and horticulture and landscape design emerged as a profession. Garden manuals began to be published by the hundreds; horticultural societies abounded, and popular magazines devoted much space to promoting gardens and garden design. At the same time, hundreds of new plants were being introduced to the United States from the Orient, parts of Europe, and South America.

With the approach of America’s 1876 centennial celebration, a keen interest in the nation’s past took root. Old-fashioned gardens of hardy perennials, self-sown annuals, and native plants (once ignored) became popular. By the close of the century, the public had embraced this old-style garden, frequently known as “grandmother’s garden.” Thus, a new style of garden and gardening was born.

The most compelling reasons for adapting the old-fashioned garden were both aesthetic and practical. Such gardens provided an alternative to the bright, harsh colors and rigid shapes that characterized the Victorian plantings of the mid-19th century. Instead, this new style of garden gave way to rich, soft, mingled blooms, and less formal and much less complex arrangements. A change in design taste had occurred and a greater awareness and appreciation for natural forms (inspired by nature), decorative objects, and a certain amount of “controlled disorder” was becoming championed, if not celebrated.

Women who made this informal, American garden saw an opportunity for an escape not just from rigid ideas about gardening but also from the confines of their lives. Their gardens became places where they could discover their own voices and create their own identities. Many went on to pursue successful careers as garden writers, painters, photographers, and landscape designers (Gertrude Jekyll, to name one). Others used these gardens as a focus of everyday activities, making them an integral part of a carefully crafted domestic life. One thing is certain: a grandmother’s garden offered a tangible connection both to their family’s past and that of the country.

Typically, a grandmother’s garden was closely integrated to the house and enclosed by a fence or hedge. The arrangement of flowers in rectangular borders was informal and exuberant, yet designed with a painterly sense of color, harmony, shape, and fragrance. Climbing roses, honeysuckle, or bittersweet could be seen rambling along fences, porch trellises, and arbors, enforcing the unity between house and garden. Hollyhocks, phlox, delphiniums, foxgloves, sunflowers, and roses were perennial favorites growing in the “mixed” border. For added texture and variety, small growing shrubs were often featured in the mixed border, hence the name.

Creative amateurs eagerly adopted grandmother’s gardens across the country, including many artists and craftsmen. They were seduced not only by the aesthetic possibilities of creating an exuberant and informally planted garden but also by its connection to American history and tradition. Unlike the estate gardens of this period, which emulated European examples (mostly England) and were lavishly planted and maintained, the old-fashioned garden was an American design, generally cultivated by one person, and one that expressed the distinct personality of the gardener. Like the cottage gardens of England that were occurring roughly at the same time, these American gardens were for the most part creations of an upwardly mobile middle class seeking to affirm gentility. In appearance and intent, they were distinctively different than both professionally designed estate gardens and gardens on working farms.

Like all gardens, they were influenced as much by do-it-yourself manuals, nursery catalogs, magazine articles, poetry, novels, and illustrations. Although the gardens themselves were ephemeral, many of the horticultural and design ideas embodied in the grandmother’s garden and its associations with the past still linger.

Today, gardeners and professionals alike are rediscovering the joy and pleasure of designing and creating a grandmother’s garden because of its gentile quality, calmness, expression of regionalism, and respect for the environment and the land around us. Many heirloom plants including woody and herbaceous, are tried and true in the garden or landscape, requiring modest amounts of water, fertilizer, and sprays.

Consider planting an old-fashioned garden and discover for yourself why everything old is new again!

Richard Liberto is a landscape designer specializing in regional landscapes and garden restoration. He can be reached at Libertodesign@comcast.net

A mixed daylily border blooms against an evergreen backdrop.

The spring perennial plant, Bergenia blooms along a meandering fieldstone path in this garden.