Bishy Barnabee’s Cottage Garden

Cottage Garden Seeds

The timeless favourites that built the cottage garden look

Quick picks
Sow this monthSpring favouritesCut flowersFor the vasePollinatorsBees and butterfliesHardy annualsAutumn-sow readyEasy to growFirst-time friendlyUnder £2.50Stock up favourites
120 products
Gypsophila Rosea from Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden creates a dense mound of small pink flowers and vibrant green foliage, beautifully spilling over a stone garden wall in any outdoor space.
Perennial

Gypsophila Rosea

The creeping perennial gypsophila, and nothing like the…

Sow: Feb–Jun
£2.30 View
Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden's Hollyhock Nigra features tall green plants with broad leaves and dramatic, ruffled black flowers. Some buds stay closed, making these gothic garden blooms striking against trees and grass outdoors.
Biennial

Hollyhock Nigra

The near-black hollyhock, and closer to true black than almost any flower gets

Sow: Apr–Jul
£2.20 View
A cluster of delicate Linum Blue Flax flowers with slender green stems blooms outdoors in soft light—a hardy perennial grown from seeds by Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd.
Perennial

Linum Blue Flax

Slender arching stems carrying hundreds of small clear…

Sow: Mar–May · Aug–Sep
£2.20 View
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Growing cottage garden classics — your questions answered

What makes a flower a cottage garden classic?

Cottage garden classics are the informal, abundant, self-seeding flowers that filled English country gardens long before bedding-out came into fashion. Think foxgloves, hollyhocks, larkspur, nigella, and cornflowers — flowers grown for their charm and forgiveness rather than uniformity. They mix happily, draw pollinators, and reseed themselves into the cracks of paths and borders.

How do I create a relaxed cottage garden look?

Plant in groups of odd numbers, mix heights deliberately (tall spires at the back, mounding shapes in the middle, low spreading edges at the front), and resist the urge to space everything evenly. Allow self-seeders to do their own thing. The cottage garden look is built from layered abundance, not order — small drifts of many species rather than blocks of a few.

Which classics should I sow first?

For instant cottage garden charm, start with cornflowers, calendula, nigella (love-in-a-mist), and cosmos — all easy from direct-sown seed and flowering within ten to twelve weeks. Add foxgloves and hollyhocks the year after; these are biennials that flower in their second summer, and once established they self-seed for years to come.

Will they come back next year?

Most cottage garden classics will self-seed reliably if you leave a few spent seed heads on the plant in late summer. You will often get drifts of seedlings the following spring — exactly the natural-looking effect that defines the style. A gentle hand with the hoe in spring is the only weeding skill required.