Acte 4: Pastorale (apologies to Beethoven)

In spite of its proximity to Paris, and possibly being somewhat better off with a higher level of employment, much of the area we have traversed around the Île-de-France looks no less desolate than the villages down south. The villages are for the most part closed up, with no signs of life, not even an elderly person dozing on a seat (although that may in part be due to the inclement weather), or a child playing in a garden. There are no people, no shops, no restaurants. Just nothing but dingy dwellings with shutters tight-closed. However, slightly further north in the Somme and on the edge of Normandy, things are a little better. The neat northern brick architecture looks in better condition, as do the half-timbered houses and barns. There are even people to be seen, villages with boulangeries and a restaurant or two offering those famous French menus with three courses for €12.

There’s always a stand-out garden – we thought we had found it at Séricourt, a garden that has just grown over time. But unlike Topsy, it has had an overall plan, and each new part blends seamlessly with the rest. Located in the Somme, it has taken as its central theme the idea of warriors and war, and while there are some references to World War One, executed with great subtlety and sensitivity, such as the Field of Battle, full of huge bomb craters (OH&S would have a field day here!), the standing warriors of Yew were inspired by the Terracotta Army in China, and the extraordinary topiaried heads by the statues on Easter Island. At every turn there is a view or a vista, both within a particular garden or into another. But it is in a fantasy garden that the owners have demonstrated the true depth of their talents – a topiary garden filled with some 400 different forms of topiary, created from Box, Yew, Juniper and other evergreens, some with a touch of whimsy, such as the salon with sofas and a bottle and glasses on the table, others more geometric, a testament to someone’s eye and skill with the shears, but all blending harmoniously together to create a panoply of still-lifes as one progresses through the garden.

Filled with awe, and already feeling it had been a very good day indeed (particularly as our first stop had been a visit to a master confisier in Amiens where we had stocked us on delicious Amiens macarons and confectionary), we drove further north to Maizicourt. Created over a 25-year period, this very personal garden has been created around a tiny, but perfect, château by a diminutive powerhouse of a woman, who, throughout our visit, scurried about the 8 hectare garden tidying up and apologising that parts of the garden were a bit “dirty”. The compact potager, laid out as a formal parterre, has a petite arbour in the centre, just the right size (and height for the owner), and artistically-placed clumps of colour - clouds of hydrangeas smothered in saucers of pink or blue or pretty annuals.

While not being a particular fan of pink, I’d have to admit the soft pinks perfectly complemented the brick and stone of the château and its picturesque outbuildings.

The cloister garden was an interesting fusion of mediaeval, Islamic and contemporary design. Here the traditional hedging materials of box and yew have been combined with bamboo, grasses and arum lilies, and more commonly-used perennials such as erigeron, paeonies and hosta to create a soft, almost romantic tranquil space with a slightly exotic feel.

The last surprise (well, to me anyway, because my copy of the September Gardens Illustrated is still firmly wrapped in its plastic cover) was Le Jardin Plume, a contemporary garden featuring, … you guessed it, … lots of grasses, but not quite as you might expect. The main part of the garden consisted of millimetre-correct square blocks of plantings, with die-straight edging, separated by immaculately mown grass paths. The blocks nearest the house had a fruit tree at the centre, surrounded by grasses and perennial, while the blocks further away had just grasses dotted with a few perennials. From the house, the manicured garden slowly disappeared into the landscape beyond. There were also a number of themed gardens that flowed across the front of the house in a horse-shoe, with the most imaginatively and spectacular combinations of grasses and perennials. Definitely food for thought …

I know I have mentioned in previous despatches the decorated rond-points, but until now have had no documentary evidence, since stopping on a roundabout, as you can imagine, is a little difficult. However, this time we took a leaf out of the French drivers’ book and pulled over. The floral car is situated near the huge Renault factory not far from Pontoise, on the north-western outskirts of Paris, while the other, complete with insect hotel is somewhere to the south of Paris. 

As always, there have been lots of lovely people along the way – Mme Dauphin – both she and her little gite south of Paris were an absolute delight, and will not be quickly forgotten thanks to the overpowering fragrance (and I use that term loosely) of her washing powder left in our clothes; our charming hosts at that paradise in the south – Camon; the kind people in the shops who waited patiently while our Eurobabble coalesced into something approximating French and who occasionally slipped an extra something into the bag; and at the last garden on the last day, the lovely couple who raided the soft fruit bushes to give us a taste of their more unusual produce such as wineberries and who would have happily sent us home with armfuls of cuttings had they been allowed … What a lot of great memories.

À bientôt,

Su