It has been a wonderful month of doing not a lot, except for winding down from garden pottering, to organising and preparing for the coming festive season. It may only be August, but shopping starts to pick up in September, especially from our American friends across the pond, beating the chaos of the peak festive season. You have been reading Gardeners Crafting Diary of Wonderment August 2026

I will discuss the sort of plants that are really easy to grow; mostly they all self-seed with ease and need little care, to create the backbone to an English cottage garden. Whilst it is easy to admire a blooming cottage garden, it is rare to consider how much work is involved and in truth, it should all look after itself for most of the year