Define cottage gardening, please

Hi
Could someone define cottage gardening for me please? From pictures, it looks cozy, and always a mixture of different kinds of plants... planned informality.

LOL, Mary - there has only been one month, so far, that the question hasn't been asked - February, so I guess it was overdue!

But if you poke around just a little tiny bit, you'll see quite a long thread on it... and it sounds like your ideas coincide greatly, but you don't wanna miss everyone elese's input.

Should be English Cottage Gardening, they started it, but, we don't live in the UK. Here is my idea of a cottage garden....

Is it your garden ,Dale ? I admire how the colour combinations are very cleverly put together .
Another question re C Gs---I would like to show some photos of my garden ,but would call it a 'country garden '-would they go in this forum ,or is there somewhere else on D's G that would be more suitable -this is my favourite site ,and I regard everyone as friends .
In the meantime ,here are some photos of my former home and the cottage garden I had there.
Emelle/

Another view -phlox ,mignonette ,dahlias ,cannas,daisies
Emelle

The same area from outside the fence .The creeper always drew admiration from visitors ,it is Australian -podranea
Emelle

I have been wondering whether to put the next photo in - I returned to our former home a month ago ,after 5 years ---the old cottage had been demolished .This was all that remained -no trees ,no garden ,no home ,no fence .This was taken standing in the same place.
Please don't be sad - I felt numb for a while ,but am so very happy in our new situation with a lovely garden I have made ....
Emelle

Emelle, everything is so beautiful!

I think I was shocked by your last photo. So bare.

Sally

Mary -- Here ya go
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/677729/

Dale A -- Tell me how to do that at my house. Just like that! How many plants are in each sort of clump? Say I have 6 plants of 12 different kinds....do I just spread them out and sort of jumble them together? I noticed there isn't any (much) white -- I think that's why I like it so well. It's not that I don't like white, it's just that I don't like it with yellow & red.

Emelle, I bet you were a wreck for a few days after seeing that! So what are they doing? Grazing sheep or something?

Suzy

Ah - and I think that sums it up!

What wonderful pictures! Thanks to you all for your input. I really like the look of the pictures posted in this thread. It is encouraging me to mix up my plantings - stick a little bit of what pleases ME wherever I feel like putting it.

Emelle, that is not my beautiful house, I just work there. Here is my house, I live in this tree.

I don't really live in that tree, I know I shouldn't lie.

I live under these bushes :-)

Here is where I really live.

My imagination was busy in all three pictures ,Dale ...As a little girl my favourite books in all the world were the Faraway tree stories by Enid Blyton -here I would lose myself in cottage gardens ,fairy houses in trees and under flowering bushes -a kindred spirit ,Dale,
Emelle

Mind you ,perhaps still a little girl except for a wrinkle or two .
This thread reminded me of visiting Melbourne ,Australia last year .Here a replica of Captain Cook's cottage was brought from England ,and the cottage garden set out exactly as it was in his day .A sense of awe and Englishness as I strolled around.
Emelle

Along the paths to the cottage with its ivy on the walls ,and neat hedges.
Emelle

And the gentleman himself ,Captain Cook, in his garden .
All the lovely traditional old fashioned flowers ,with brick paths .
Emelle

Slightly off topic: just outside the cottage, I saw this mother with her two little girls making daisy chains .Unfortunately just as I clicked ,they saw me ...
Emelle

Dale, your garden fits your home beautifully! It looks very cozy. I'd rather live there than under a bush, any day.

Was the tree a Ficus of some sort?

Tropical cottage garden...

Even in the tropics we can grow some plants that are known to you snowbound types...

And some things ya'll will never see in the neighbors yard.