English Country Gardens.

                                                                                                                          “How many kinds of sweet flowers grow in an English Country Garden? We’ll tell you now of some that we know. Those we miss, you’ll surely pardon. Daffodils, heart’s ease and phlox, gentian, lupine and tall hollyhocks, meadowsweet and lady smocks, roses, foxgloves, snowdrops, blue forget-me-nots. In an English Country Garden.” – Lyrics by Jimmie Rodgers.

This was one of my favorite children’s songs.

The opening scene in my next release, a Regency, takes place in the heroine’s enclosed garden, so naturally I want to have one on the cover.

As you can tell from my research pictures, there are many flowers growing in an English garden. Too many for a book cover. As beautiful as those flowers are, they can’t compete with the subjects.

You’ll notice that the gardens of great estates were quite formal, laid out with precision and detail. The country garden, however, were less formal. The flowers seem artlessly placed, as if they’d just sprung up where nature put them. Nothing could be further from the truth, though.

I know. My mother had such a garden with meandering paths. Pansies, phlox and lilies competed with each other in front of azalea, bride’s wreath, and roses. Some places were sparse, others crowded. Flowering shrubs and small trees were allowed to spread out. They provided wonderful hiding places for a little girl to play house.

Of all these English garden pictures, which would you say I should choose for my book cover?

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