Cottage Garden Summer Flowers

• A cottage garden is full of closely planted flowering plants and herbs. Photodisc/Digital Vision/Getty Images

  A cottage garden includes flowers, herbs, vegetables and other small plants surrounding a small house, or cottage. This style of garden is informal and uses mass plantings; it has informal lines and pathways. The term "cottage garden" evokes images of quaint Victorian-era homes or rustic cottages in an English countryside. Cottage gardens are known for their charming style and use of simple, hardy plants, according to the Texas A&M AgriLIFE Extension website

English Primrose

• The English primrose (Primula vulgaris) is hardy as far north as USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 5. It grows best under deciduous plants where it receives sunshine in early spring and shade in the hottest part of summer. The low-growing and perennial English primrose grows in bunches and produces clusters of colorful flowers during the summer months.

Lilies

• Lilies (Lilium sp.) grow from a bulb and there are many types and varieties available with different growth habits and flowering periods. They reproduce every year from the bulbs and root sections but look best planted in groups of three bulbs or more. The stems are usually thin and upright and the flowers are borne atop the long stems. The flowers and stems fade away once they finished blooming only to return the following spring and summer.

Lavender

• Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) is an aromatic herb that produces fragrant blue or purple flower spikes during the summer. The flowers and stems are used dried or fresh to freshen the air or in a bath to cleanse and refresh the body. Lavender grows in well-drained soil that is slightly alkaline. It was a common herb found in cottage gardens of England, according to the Colorado State University Cooperative Extension website.

Mock Orange

• Mock orange (Philadelphus lewisii) is a rangy shrub that grows in full sun to part shade in moist, well-drained garden soil. It is not related to the orange but produces white flowers for a few weeks in summer that smell like citrus. It is native to the United States and often is planted against a garden wall or informal fence in a cottage garden.

Tansy

• Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is a summer-blooming perennial often found in cottage gardens. It has aromatic, fernlike leaves and small round yellow flowers that form an umbrel. The flowers attract beneficial insects to the garden. Tansy can be grown all over the U.S. if given sufficient moisture. It may go dormant in the hottest part of the summer. It once was used as a medicinal herb to remove worms and parasites and the leaves and stems were hung in rafters to repel insects.