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The Contemporary Cottage Garden: Climate-Friendly, Mindful Methods for Growing Flowers and Food
In The Contemporary Cottage Garden, longtime gardener Pamela Hubbard expertly walks the gardener through what it takes to grow in the cottage garden style—where flowers and vegetables are intermingled in a casual display of colorful brilliance—while also meeting the needs of the modern world in an era of increased weather extremes. An abundance of beautiful photos by Rob Cardillo highlights Hubbard’s cottage garden in Pennsylvania, where she has integrated invaluable techniques for cottage gardening in a contemporary way. Gardeners at any stage of their gardening journey will find invaluable insight Gardening for increased biodiversity and pollinators Creating a cottage meadow garden Designing a gravel garden for drought-prone areas Creating rain gardens for wet areas and fire-wise gardens for arid regions Gardening to reduce stress and promote healing Instilling a love for the environment in children by creating a children's garden Creating a sensory garden ...and more! The cottage garden style has been practiced across time, and Hubbard extends its bountiful possibilities through a modern, ecological lens.
- GenresNonfiction
243 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 10, 2026
1 person is currently reading
17 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 1, 2025
Thanks so much to NetGalley for the free Kindle book. My review is voluntarily given, and my opinions are my own.
I absolutely loved this book, especially the stunning photographs. They reminded me of my childhood, and all of the countless hours spent in my grandma's enormous garden. It's always nice to get reminders of her, since she passed away about 15 years ago. Crazy.
This a wonderful book for anyone looking for ideas for their garden, or even just a coffee table book. Definitely would recommend.
I absolutely loved this book, especially the stunning photographs. They reminded me of my childhood, and all of the countless hours spent in my grandma's enormous garden. It's always nice to get reminders of her, since she passed away about 15 years ago. Crazy.
This a wonderful book for anyone looking for ideas for their garden, or even just a coffee table book. Definitely would recommend.
February 19, 2026
Pamela Hubbard’s writing paired with Rob Cardillo’s photography of Hubbard’s own gardens produced a book lush with information and inspiration to new or veteran gardeners alike.
The Contemporary Cottage Garden starts with the history of the cottage garden starting in medieval times and moves into what that garden looks like today. Serf and working-class families were sustained by these gardens. There were ornamental dilettante gardens for the hobbyists even in earlier eras, but for the most part, the cottage garden isn’t only about the looks so much as the function, food and medicinal.
The Contemporary Cottage Garden feels very up to the minute when discussing environmental factors, climate-change, working-from-home office plantings, and food prices, but also timeless as Hubbard shares how people can cut back on the manicured lawns and not try to sort the food plants from the aesthetical beauties (which are incidentally also food for pollinators and other wild life) or from the medicinal. Hubbard leans into the more ornamental ‘English garden’ look and the more traditional plantings that grow there- no surprise since the cottage garden is English, after all.
Although I don’t live in a region where extreme weather and situations like drought, wildfire, and other atmospheric phenomena are an issue, I still found reading her advice instructive for these situations.
I was also taken with her suggestions for thematic gardening including an interesting sensory garden for those who want or need this aesthetic. She was also family and community inclusive when it comes to gardening and not just a solo sport to relieve a gardener’s stresses (though it does that, for certain). Personally, I enjoy sound, scent, taste, and touch to factor as much as visual so this part resonated with me.
Pamela Hubbard has a nice warm hospitable style that welcomes readers into her garden and gardening experience and the pictures solidified this feeling. A good choice to build enthusiasm and gain beneficial advice for the cottage garden.
I rec'd an eARC via NetGalley to read in exchange for an honest review.
My full review will post at Books of My Heart on 2.18.26
The Contemporary Cottage Garden starts with the history of the cottage garden starting in medieval times and moves into what that garden looks like today. Serf and working-class families were sustained by these gardens. There were ornamental dilettante gardens for the hobbyists even in earlier eras, but for the most part, the cottage garden isn’t only about the looks so much as the function, food and medicinal.
The Contemporary Cottage Garden feels very up to the minute when discussing environmental factors, climate-change, working-from-home office plantings, and food prices, but also timeless as Hubbard shares how people can cut back on the manicured lawns and not try to sort the food plants from the aesthetical beauties (which are incidentally also food for pollinators and other wild life) or from the medicinal. Hubbard leans into the more ornamental ‘English garden’ look and the more traditional plantings that grow there- no surprise since the cottage garden is English, after all.
Although I don’t live in a region where extreme weather and situations like drought, wildfire, and other atmospheric phenomena are an issue, I still found reading her advice instructive for these situations.
I was also taken with her suggestions for thematic gardening including an interesting sensory garden for those who want or need this aesthetic. She was also family and community inclusive when it comes to gardening and not just a solo sport to relieve a gardener’s stresses (though it does that, for certain). Personally, I enjoy sound, scent, taste, and touch to factor as much as visual so this part resonated with me.
Pamela Hubbard has a nice warm hospitable style that welcomes readers into her garden and gardening experience and the pictures solidified this feeling. A good choice to build enthusiasm and gain beneficial advice for the cottage garden.
I rec'd an eARC via NetGalley to read in exchange for an honest review.
My full review will post at Books of My Heart on 2.18.26
November 3, 2025
Garden coach Pam Hubbard has written an interesting book about planting a cottage garden as a response to climate change, pollution, economic upheaval, and stress, not to mention the desire to have a beautiful garden.
"The Contemporary Cottage Garden" begins with an informative history of the cottage garden. In its early 12th century origins, a cottage garden comprised plants grown in the earth surrounding a garden, typically grown by peasants, more for edibles than beauty. In the 18th century, English aristocracy escaped the city to the more genteel countryside and planted large-scale cottage gardens. Our present day cottage gardens fall somewhere in between, depending on the size of the gardener’s plot. Hubbard gives instructions for creating an English-style cottage garden, a garden with lots of color and curves, a casual rather than planned appearance—although much planning goes into a cottage garden—as much for meandering through as admiring. She then dives deep into making this cottage garden sustainable and organic on all fronts.
I’ve been reading a lot of gardening books, and I appreciate Hubbard's environmental awareness and timely approach. She presents a thorough explanation of how gardening can address climate change, pollution, and rising food costs. Many gardeners talk about the negative environmental impact of lawns and mitigating them by replacing lawn with a cottage garden or meadow. Hubbard does this as well and also offers steps for planting gardens that resist heavy rain, drought, or wildfire. She returns to the cottage garden's origins by including edibles along with the flowers. Hubbard includes steps for creating a cutting garden as a way for remote workers to bring the garden’s beauty to their home office. She also dedicates a chapter to creating healing gardens that offer comfort and calm, benefitting all dwellers, whether to address a specific health need or simply to enjoy with children or relieve daily stress. Hubbard's contemporary cottage garden is planned and planted to address the modern ills of the world.
Hubbard's instructions are clear and concise, if at times a bit cut and dry. Nonetheless, new and experienced gardeners who want to plant an environmentally and socially responsible garden will likely find something to learn in this book.
Thank you to Timber Press and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
#netgalley #thecontemporarycottagegarden #timberpress
"The Contemporary Cottage Garden" begins with an informative history of the cottage garden. In its early 12th century origins, a cottage garden comprised plants grown in the earth surrounding a garden, typically grown by peasants, more for edibles than beauty. In the 18th century, English aristocracy escaped the city to the more genteel countryside and planted large-scale cottage gardens. Our present day cottage gardens fall somewhere in between, depending on the size of the gardener’s plot. Hubbard gives instructions for creating an English-style cottage garden, a garden with lots of color and curves, a casual rather than planned appearance—although much planning goes into a cottage garden—as much for meandering through as admiring. She then dives deep into making this cottage garden sustainable and organic on all fronts.
I’ve been reading a lot of gardening books, and I appreciate Hubbard's environmental awareness and timely approach. She presents a thorough explanation of how gardening can address climate change, pollution, and rising food costs. Many gardeners talk about the negative environmental impact of lawns and mitigating them by replacing lawn with a cottage garden or meadow. Hubbard does this as well and also offers steps for planting gardens that resist heavy rain, drought, or wildfire. She returns to the cottage garden's origins by including edibles along with the flowers. Hubbard includes steps for creating a cutting garden as a way for remote workers to bring the garden’s beauty to their home office. She also dedicates a chapter to creating healing gardens that offer comfort and calm, benefitting all dwellers, whether to address a specific health need or simply to enjoy with children or relieve daily stress. Hubbard's contemporary cottage garden is planned and planted to address the modern ills of the world.
Hubbard's instructions are clear and concise, if at times a bit cut and dry. Nonetheless, new and experienced gardeners who want to plant an environmentally and socially responsible garden will likely find something to learn in this book.
Thank you to Timber Press and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
#netgalley #thecontemporarycottagegarden #timberpress
September 12, 2025
This is a beautiful, helpful and inspirational book that’s brimming with good advice and gorgeous photos of the author’s own cottage gardens. Hubbard focuses especially on how to create a cottage garden with our changing weather and challenges from climate change, giving excellent advice on plants and strategies to address issues like wildfire risks, drought and heavy rains.
I appreciated that she focuses on sustainable gardening in terms of materials used (no more peat moss, for instance) and practices (no pesticides and practices like planting nasturtiums next to cabbages so the cabbage moth caterpillars eat those instead). I also appreciated that she recommends incorporating native plants.
She has all kinds of additional content too, from plans for children’s gardens to suggested plants for sensory gardens and so much more. Tons of photos accompany every bit of it so you can see examples of all of her tips and plans. She is also just imminently likable, and it was like getting a garden tour and a heap of wisdom from a friendly neighbor.
I personally love cottage gardens and my own gardens are a mix of native gardens and cottage gardens. I am definitely focusing primarily on native plants these days though, and would have liked to see more encouragement there. Some native plants are not as frilly and pretty as those classic English flowers, but they are often important food sources for pollinators and for the caterpillars that birds rely on to feed their young.
Hubbard‘s gardens are also far too neat and labor intensive for me, as well. That’s another reason I love my native flowers— they are used to thriving on their own without watering, fertilizer and special care. I leave the dried seedheads to feed the birds over the winter and sow their own seeds for next year, the dried stalks for overwintering bees, and so on. Hubbard says to rake up the fall leaves and go over them with the lawnmower a few times for sustainable mulch, but fireflies overwinter in those leaves and I’ve often found cecropia cocoons in our leafy areas, which next summer will split open to present the colorful, palm sized moths that are the largest in North America.
Those small comments aside, I do love the book and heartily recommend it.
I read a temporary digital copy of this book online for the purpose of review.
I appreciated that she focuses on sustainable gardening in terms of materials used (no more peat moss, for instance) and practices (no pesticides and practices like planting nasturtiums next to cabbages so the cabbage moth caterpillars eat those instead). I also appreciated that she recommends incorporating native plants.
She has all kinds of additional content too, from plans for children’s gardens to suggested plants for sensory gardens and so much more. Tons of photos accompany every bit of it so you can see examples of all of her tips and plans. She is also just imminently likable, and it was like getting a garden tour and a heap of wisdom from a friendly neighbor.
I personally love cottage gardens and my own gardens are a mix of native gardens and cottage gardens. I am definitely focusing primarily on native plants these days though, and would have liked to see more encouragement there. Some native plants are not as frilly and pretty as those classic English flowers, but they are often important food sources for pollinators and for the caterpillars that birds rely on to feed their young.
Hubbard‘s gardens are also far too neat and labor intensive for me, as well. That’s another reason I love my native flowers— they are used to thriving on their own without watering, fertilizer and special care. I leave the dried seedheads to feed the birds over the winter and sow their own seeds for next year, the dried stalks for overwintering bees, and so on. Hubbard says to rake up the fall leaves and go over them with the lawnmower a few times for sustainable mulch, but fireflies overwinter in those leaves and I’ve often found cecropia cocoons in our leafy areas, which next summer will split open to present the colorful, palm sized moths that are the largest in North America.
Those small comments aside, I do love the book and heartily recommend it.
I read a temporary digital copy of this book online for the purpose of review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Book Review: The Contemporary Cottage Garden by Pamela Hubbard
Rating: 4 Stars
I recently picked up The Contemporary Cottage Garden by Pamela Hubbard, and I have to say it’s a real treat for anyone who loves gardening—especially if you’re into that charming cottage garden vibe but want ideas that fit our modern world.
Hubbard takes the classic cottage garden style—think colorful, casual mixes of flowers and veggies—and updates it with smart, practical approaches suited for today’s climate challenges. She doesn’t just stop at pretty arrangements; the book dives into gardening methods that help with biodiversity, attract pollinators, and work well in different conditions like drought or heavy rain. There are sections on making cottage meadows, gravel gardens for dry spots, rain gardens, and even fire-wise gardens for arid areas. Plus, Hubbard includes wonderful ideas for making gardens that promote healing and stress relief, as well as fun projects like children’s gardens and sensory gardens.
What really stands out are the gorgeous photos by Rob Cardillo. Each page is filled with vibrant images from Hubbard’s own Pennsylvania garden that perfectly illustrate her advice. It makes the book not only informative but also incredibly inspiring and visually appealing. The cover itself is delightful and sets the tone for what’s inside—a blend of beauty and practicality. This book is packed with valuable insights and creative ideas that gardeners of all levels can appreciate.
If you’re looking to create a garden that’s both timeless and tuned into our changing environment, The Contemporary Cottage Garden is definitely worth a look. It’s a lovely blend of tradition and innovation, with advice that feels both grounded and fresh. Highly recommended!
⚠️This review was written based on personal opinions and experiences with the book. Individual preferences may vary⚠️
Rating: 4 Stars
I recently picked up The Contemporary Cottage Garden by Pamela Hubbard, and I have to say it’s a real treat for anyone who loves gardening—especially if you’re into that charming cottage garden vibe but want ideas that fit our modern world.
Hubbard takes the classic cottage garden style—think colorful, casual mixes of flowers and veggies—and updates it with smart, practical approaches suited for today’s climate challenges. She doesn’t just stop at pretty arrangements; the book dives into gardening methods that help with biodiversity, attract pollinators, and work well in different conditions like drought or heavy rain. There are sections on making cottage meadows, gravel gardens for dry spots, rain gardens, and even fire-wise gardens for arid areas. Plus, Hubbard includes wonderful ideas for making gardens that promote healing and stress relief, as well as fun projects like children’s gardens and sensory gardens.
What really stands out are the gorgeous photos by Rob Cardillo. Each page is filled with vibrant images from Hubbard’s own Pennsylvania garden that perfectly illustrate her advice. It makes the book not only informative but also incredibly inspiring and visually appealing. The cover itself is delightful and sets the tone for what’s inside—a blend of beauty and practicality. This book is packed with valuable insights and creative ideas that gardeners of all levels can appreciate.
If you’re looking to create a garden that’s both timeless and tuned into our changing environment, The Contemporary Cottage Garden is definitely worth a look. It’s a lovely blend of tradition and innovation, with advice that feels both grounded and fresh. Highly recommended!
⚠️This review was written based on personal opinions and experiences with the book. Individual preferences may vary⚠️
October 20, 2025
The Contemporary Cottage Garden is a thoroughly written and beautifully composed book that reimagines the classic cottage garden through a modern, sustainable lens. The author thoughtfully balances aesthetics and practicality, offering climate-conscious methods that feel both attainable and inspiring.
What I appreciated most was the variety of gardens featured, there’s something for everyone, from traditional flower borders to kitchen gardens brimming with vegetables. I especially loved the inclusion of children’s garden ideas and the section on how to get kids involved outdoors; it felt warm, inclusive, and community-minded.
The photography is stunning, capturing not just the beauty of blooms but the textures of soil, leaves, and homegrown produce. I’m glad that the book didn’t solely focus on flowers but also celebrated vegetable growing as part of the cottage garden’s charm. Overall, it’s an engaging, mindful guide that encourages gardening with both heart and sustainability in mind. One of the most thorough books about modern cottage gardens-highly recommend.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this advance copy.
What I appreciated most was the variety of gardens featured, there’s something for everyone, from traditional flower borders to kitchen gardens brimming with vegetables. I especially loved the inclusion of children’s garden ideas and the section on how to get kids involved outdoors; it felt warm, inclusive, and community-minded.
The photography is stunning, capturing not just the beauty of blooms but the textures of soil, leaves, and homegrown produce. I’m glad that the book didn’t solely focus on flowers but also celebrated vegetable growing as part of the cottage garden’s charm. Overall, it’s an engaging, mindful guide that encourages gardening with both heart and sustainability in mind. One of the most thorough books about modern cottage gardens-highly recommend.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this advance copy.
November 19, 2025
There was so much valuable information in this book! The author is so knowledgeable. The photographs were stunning. I learned a lot about gardening, both cottage gardens and vegetable gardens that I can’t wait to implement next spring. My one problem with the book though was the alarmist doom and gloom. Reading some of it had me picturing the author gardening as the apocalypse happened around her. However, she’s right, gardening is an excellent hobby for reducing stress if one’s view of life is so dark. Learning about different types of gardens such as rain gardens, gravels gardens, etc. is so helpful for people living in different climates.
Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the ebook to review.
Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the ebook to review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This book is beautiful! With full colour photos, and helpful hints throughout, this is a great book for both new and experienced gardeners. Hubbard provides lists of plants for different spaces and uses and I especially love the chapter on gardens as healing spaces.
5 stars! Will be buying for the store I work at and for my own collection.
Thank you to NetGalley and Timber Press for the advanced copy of this book.
5 stars! Will be buying for the store I work at and for my own collection.
Thank you to NetGalley and Timber Press for the advanced copy of this book.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
A lovely contemporary book introducing all aspects of modern cottage gardening. It is full of beautiful photographs and a multitude of ideas to plan your summer garden. Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy and I would definitely recommend this book.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews