Monthly Archives: September 2010

Chateau de Brecy – A Place of Style and Substance

Chateau de Brecy is owned by Monsieur Didier Wirth and his wife Barbara. It is immensely stylish and restrained with four formal terraces leading up from the chateau. The structural planting consists entirely of yew, box and hornbeam. Carved stone artichokes are an ornamental device used in old and new stone features throughout the garden. On either side of the formal gardens the formality gives way to orchards of traditional cider apples. This is gardening on a grand scale – Monsieur Wirth has befriended neighbouring farmers and planted avenues of trees  on their land to complement the chateau and has been given permission to fell a distant poplar that blocks a vista in exchange for a case of champagne. He is also purchasing a hill 5km away that is directly in line with the avenue that leads from the main gate with the intention of erecting a structure that will draw the eye to the horizon.

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La Bizerie – A Plantsman’s Garden

Jerome Goutier is a garden journalist with a passion for unusual plants.  The topography of his garden allows him to grow a vast range of plants, from Mediterranean in the sun-baked banks around the house to semi-tropical in the humid valley. I loved the closely cropped topiary rosemary which I shall copy and am very tempted to get myself a Eupatorium ligustrinum – a veritable pompom of flowers at this time of year. www.cotentincotejardins.fr

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Jardin Botanique de Vauville – a Jungle in Normandy

I do love a mad garden – and this is certainly one of glorious eccentricity  and ground-breaking horticulture.  Using mainly southern-hemisphere plants, the mellifluously named owners Guillaume Pellerin and his wife Cleophee de Turckheim have created something more akin to a jungle than a Northern European garden.  So far Guillaume has planted 1500 palms, but he hopes eventually to have 4,500. The garden swallows you up as you weave your way between groves of hairy-trunked palms that give way to thickets of bamboo and clustered cordylines. Ponds look like tributaries of the Amazon,  giant eucalyptus are lulled into flower by the Gulf Stream and Eryngium pandanifolium grow into huge plants 2.5 metres tall.  It is all wonderful and extraordinary – as are Guillaume’s leather pantaloons which have the texture and appearance of a well-loved club armchair! www.jardin-vauville.fr

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Chateau de Nacqueville

Florence d’Harcourt is a brave woman. She took on the family chateau and its grounds when her three brothers decided that none of them wanted the responsibility.  She and her husband Thierry (despite his name he didn’t speak the language and had never been to France) uprooted themselves and their children from Australia and moved in ten years ago.  With the help of just one gardener they work incredibly hard to maintain the classic landscape garden (designed by an English gardener in the early 19th century). I left there full of admiration – and somewhat daunted by what they have taken on. www.nacqueville.com/uk

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Norman Wisdom

We’ve just returned from a long weekend in Normandy visiting a selection of fine gardens courtesy of French Gardens Today and Brittany Ferries – what a treat!  Our hotel, Hotel des Ormes in the civilised seaside town of Barneville Carteret was charming with the bonus of a superb garden. The gardens we visited (many of which are not open to the public) ranged from the grandest of the grand formal gardens to a fascinating plantsman’s garden. I’m inspired and exhilarated!

Hotel des Ormes

Hotel des Ormes

Guillaume Pellerin planted the hotel garden

Guillaume Pellerin planted the hotel garden

Tulbaghia in a wall-top bed

Tulbaghia in a wall-top bed

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