A cottage garden is the ultimate country dream come true, where flowers mix with herbs and vegetables in colorful abandon. You’ll love cutting fresh flowers for bouquets, snipping herbs and lettuces for salad, and picking tender beans for dinner.

The real-life cottage gardens of English history were commonly mixed plantings of vegetables, fruits, and herbs, complete with honeybees, chickens, and perhaps a family pig. As time went on and living conditions became less harsh, more flowers were added to cottage gardens.

The joy of these gardens is their casual, informal appearance. They should not be overly neat and tidy! All you really have to worry about is thinning vigorous perennials every few years so that they don’t over step their boundaries! Here is a list of 20 plants to get started. Print it out and take it with you next time you go to the local garden nursery:

Sneezeweed

Honesty

Feverfew

Bacherlor’s button

Hollyhock

Johnny-jump-up

Lemon lily

Golden glow

Garden phlox

Sage

Scarlet runner bean

Thymes

Dill

Borage

Mints

Peonies

Foxglove

Jasmine tobacco

Wild columbine

Bleeding heart