The dominating colours in the Cottage Garden are hot saturated shades of red, orange, and yellow, a colour scheme that both Sackville-West and Nicolson claimed as their own conception. Lord considers it as much a traditional "cottage garden as Marie Antoinette was a milkmaid". Here, as elsewhere, Sackville-West was much influenced by William Robinson, a gardener she greatly admired and who had done much to popularise the concept of the cottage garden. It contains four beds, surrounded by simple paths, with planting in colours that Sackville-West described as those of the sunset. Plants include a range of dahlias, a particular favourite of Nicolson's, and the red-hot poker, which he despised. In a 1937 letter to his wife he observed, "I think the secret of your gardening is simply that you have the courage to abolish ugly or unsuccessful flowers. Except for those beastly red-hot pokers which you have a weakness for, there is not an ugly flower in the whole place."