How to Create a Beautiful English Garden, No Matter Where You Live

English gardens have an ethereal, peaceful feel: Roses clambering over stone walls, old-fashioned plantings such as sweet peas, and meandering paths that invite you to explore. But there’s actually not one defining feature. “The concept means many different things to different people,” says garden historian Jenny Rose Carey, author of The Ultimate Flower Gardener’s Guide and former senior director of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s Meadowbrook Farm. “But what’s appealing about the ‘English-ness’ of it is that you can take what you like about the look and make it part of your own garden’s design, no matter where you live.”

Historically, English gardens evolved from many sources of inspiration, including walled kitchen gardens, which supplied large estates with fruit and vegetables, and cottage gardens, which were productive spaces where herbs, flowers, vegetables, flowers, and livestock were raised together. Great houses, such as Great Dixter and Hidcote, reflect the iconic English garden sensibility that remains so appealing even today. “We can’t take that Sussex farmhouse and the old stone walls back with us, but we can find plant combinations and elements we love and recreate that feeling in our own gardens,” says Carey.

Ahead, here’s how to incorporate the romance and beauty of these gardens into your own outdoor spaces with these English garden ideas.