Start with the bones, not the flowers

Cottage gardens are remembered for their flowers, but the structure underneath matters just as much. Before you order a single packet of seed, decide where people will walk, where they will sit, and how the plot is enclosed. A gently curving gravel path, a simple brick or timber edging, a low hurdle fence or a clipped hedge — these quiet elements hold the planting together and stop it tipping into chaos.

If you have only a small front garden, one path running from gate to door is plenty. Larger plots can take a cross path or a small circular route, which gives you sheltered corners to fill with scented plants — something to brush against as you squeeze past. Aim for a path at least 90cm wide, or 1.2m if two people need to pass comfortably. Leave room for plants to spill over the edges, but not so much that you are forever cutting them back with the shears.

Get this framework right and the planting can be as loose and generous as you like without ever looking untidy.

Choose a palette, then repeat it

The difference between a cottage garden that looks designed and one that looks like a jumble sale is repetition. Pick two or three main colours and use them again and again down the border, rather than collecting one of everything. Repeating the same plant in drifts of three, five or seven carries the eye along and makes the whole space feel intentional.

Reliable combinations for a British climate include soft blues and purples with cream and silver — think nepeta, hardy geraniums and Stachys byzantina — or warm pinks, apricots and deep burgundy with cosmos, dahlias and hellebores. Keep a few neutral anchors in green, white or grey foliage to separate the stronger shades, otherwise everything shouts at once. Silver leaves such as artemisia and lavender are especially useful in our damp, grey summers because they reflect what little light we get.

Build height and texture in layers

Cottage planting works best as three loose layers. At the back, put the tall spires: hollyhocks, delphiniums, foxgloves, verbascums and thladiantha-style climbers scrambling up a simple obelisk. In the middle, fill with hardy geraniums, astrantia, salvias and peonies. At the front, use low, spreading plants that tumble onto the path: alchemilla, erigeron, violas, creeping thyme and hardy cranesbills.

Shape matters as much as colour. Mix spires, umbels, daisies and soft mounds so the border has something interesting at every level. Fennel and dill give airy, see-through height; echinacea and rudbeckia bring flat daisy faces that bees adore; alchemilla mollis knits everything together with its soft, scalloped leaves and froth of lime-green flowers.

Use scent and useful herbs

A cottage garden should reward the nose as well as the eye, and herbs earn their place twice over. Line the path with low-growing thymes and creeping savory that release their scent when stepped on, then tuck in taller plants behind.

• Thyme, oregano and marjoram for the front edge, where they will bask in sun and drain freely.
• Chives and parsley for cut-and-come-again leaves, plus chive flowers that bees queue up for.
• Sage and rosemary for evergreen structure, clipped lightly after flowering to stop them going woody.
• Lavender for low hedges and path edges, especially English varieties that cope with our winters.
• Old-fashioned roses such as damasks and albas, grown through the border rather than in a separate bed, for scent that carries on a warm evening.

Grow them among the flowers rather than in a separate herb patch. Thyme spilling over gravel and chives pushing up through geraniums is exactly the relaxed look you are after, and it confuses pests at the same time.

Plant for a long season, not one glorious week

Cottage gardens should be in flower from March to November, which means planning for succession rather than a single midsummer show. Start with spring bulbs, wallflowers, honesty and aquilegia. Move into early summer with peonies, sweet peas and the first roses. Carry on through high summer with cosmos, dahlias, heleniums and Salvia nemorosa, then finish with asters, Japanese anemones and sedums that hold their shape into the frosts.

Allow a few self-seeders to wander — foxgloves, calendula, nigella, poppies and verbena will fill gaps for free if you leave some seed heads standing through winter. Resist the urge to tidy everything in October; those hollow stems are shelter for overwintering insects, and the birds will thank you.

Keep it generous, not neglected

The trick to a cottage garden is looking after it without making it look looked-after. Deadhead regularly to keep flowers coming, stake tall perennials early with discreet twiggy supports rather than canes, and give the whole border a mulch of well-rotted compost each spring. In early summer, cut back hardy geraniums, nepeta and astrantia by about a third — the old "Chelsea chop" — to encourage fresh growth and a later flush of flowers.

Divide crowded clumps every three or four years, in autumn or early spring, and replant the healthiest pieces. Feed container-grown plants weekly through the growing season, but go easy on rich feeds in the border, or you will get floppy growth and fewer flowers.

Above all, plant densely. Weeds struggle where the ground is covered, and a full border simply looks kinder. Start small, repeat your colours, let the herbs soften the edges, and the garden will do the rest.