About us @ cottage-garden.org

Cottage garden in full bloom
- summer

No big team here, just Judy and John Aarsen, both very enthusiastic about cottage gardening. We hope that you, our visitor, will enjoy our cottage garden as much as we do too.

We are blessed with five children (Tanja, Mark, John, Darren and Christopher), one grandson (our Jason), two cats (Cuddly / Cuddles and Blue / Bluey), and two dogs (Mignon - a.k.a. Minnie - and Micky - a.k.a. The Mick).

Who does the Work in this Place?

1. Judy:
   • Was born and educated in London, is a former ballerina and airline stewardess and was Tanja's coach during her athletic career.
   • Is a lifelong dance and aerobic enthusiast.
   • Studied art history in Rome and is our in-home expert critic for both web site and cottage garden colour schemes.
   • Attended art classes in Schijndel and has produced numerous paintings and sketches of our cottage garden.
   • Organizes the entire photo archive for both this site and the site of our daughter, Tanja Baumann.
   • Is responsible for the best photos on our site - she's a far better photographer than I am. We use a simple, 10 year old camera, no frills attached.
   • Had never been involved in gardening aside from tending pot plants in the United Kingdom and Switzerland.
   • Became involved in gardening after we met in June 1996 and married in May 1997, though she still dislikes creepy crawlies of any kind, including earthworms.
2. John:
   • Was born and raised in Singapore, spent his teens in South Africa, lived and worked in Holland, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom in the 1970's and early 1980's and settled in The Netherlands in 1982.
   • Is a retired sales and marketing director and managing director.
   • Was vice-president (spare time function) of the Dutch Championship Aerobics Federation DCAF for 11 years from 1985 to 1996.
   • Resigned from the DCAF when I married Judy to concentrate on helping Tanja to develop her business.
   • Designed and built cottage-garden.org and tanjabaumann.com.
   • Is responsible for the less successful pictures on our cottage garden site.
   • Has been a keen gardener for 50 years and converted to cottage gardening in 1985.

What's the Purpose of cottage-garden.org?

By providing a practical guide to cottage gardening, we hope to persuade many more people to become cottage gardeners.

The benefits? A cottage garden is:

• Gets you close to nature, plants and wildlife
• Very beneficial to our environment - organic
• A very effective form of exercise