Editing Gardening (section)

===Cottage gardens===
[[File:XN Kerascoet.jpg|thumb|A cottage garden in [[Brittany]]]]

[[Cottage garden]]s, which emerged in [[Elizabethan times]], appear to have originated as a local source for herbs and fruits.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ryrie|first=Charlie|title=The Cottage Garden: How to Plan and Plant a Garden That Grows Itself|publisher=[[Collins & Brown]]|year=2004|page=7|isbn=978-1-84340-216-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8VfO_WIAx0wC&pg=PA7}}</ref> One theory is that they arose out of the [[Black Death]] of the 1340s, when the death of so many laborers made land available for small cottages with personal gardens.<ref name="Scott-James80">{{cite book|last=Scott-James|first=Anne|author2=Osbert Lancaster|title=The Pleasure Garden: An Illustrated History of British Gardening|publisher=[[Frances Lincoln Publishers]]|year=2004|page=80|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IbhwIo3m3mQC&pg=PA80|isbn=978-0-7112-2360-8}}{{Dead link|date=May 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> According to the late 19th-century legend of origin,<ref>[[Anne Scott-James]], ''The Cottage Garden'' (London: Lane) 1981, demythologised the origins of the English cottage garden, and its treasured [[topiary]] among the vegetables and flowers, popularly supposed to represent heirlooms from the seventeenth century.</ref> These gardens were originally created by the workers who lived in the cottages of the villages to provide them with food and herbs, with flowers planted among them for decoration. [[Farmworker|Farm workers]] were provided with cottages that had architectural quality set in a small garden—about {{convert|1|acre|abbr=off}}—where they could grow food and keep pigs and chickens.<ref>Colvin, Howard (2008). ''A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600–1840'', [[Yale University Press]], {{ISBN|0-300-12508-9}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=CSyaO-MqYoAC&pg=PA659 p. 659] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230115181038/https://books.google.com/books?id=CSyaO-MqYoAC&pg=PA659 |date=15 January 2023 }}</ref>

Authentic gardens of the [[yeoman]] cottager would have included a beehive and [[livestock]], and frequently a pig and sty, along with a well. The peasant cottager of medieval times was more interested in meat than flowers, with herbs grown for medicinal use rather than for their beauty. By Elizabethan times, there was more prosperity, and thus more room to grow flowers. Even the early cottage garden flowers typically had their practical use—violets were spread on the floor (for their pleasant scent and keeping out vermin); [[calendula]]s and [[primula vulgaris|primroses]] were both attractive and used in cooking. Others, such as [[Dianthus barbatus|sweet William]] and [[hollyhock]]s, were grown entirely for their beauty.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lloyd|first=Christopher|author2=Richard Bird|others=Jacqui Hurst|title=The Cottage Garden|publisher=[[Dorling Kindersley]]|year=1999|pages=6–9|isbn=978-0-7513-0702-3}}</ref>