French Provincial Garden Plants
When planning a French provincial garden, start by thinking about the French! What comes to mind? Good food, laughter, a certain arrogance, a sense of style, love-making, passion, fiery arguments, intense rural life hidden behind shutters … these and others are the emotional notes that need to fill your garden, as well as the visual, olfactory and design notes that will make your garden an intense experience. When planning your own garden, pick a place or region that you know or appeals to you, such as my own favourite Camargue with its little black bulls, running horses, marshes and wildfowl, the Riviera of striped umbrellas, high fashion, hot colours and wonderful seafood or Burgundy's wide rivers, vineyards and cheeses. This helps you narrow your plant and style choices instead of trying to fit a huge and varied nation into a few square yards. Get some holiday brochures (villa holiday pictures are often superb) and look at the colour of sky and sea, the size of plants and the stone-work, accessories and layouts used in the pictures, now you can begin to plan your own planting. The way the French provincial planting works is to have mass planting of flowers bordered with a solid structure, so you could have petunias and lavender fenced with white painted wood or roses pinned behind a hedge of English box (B. sempervirens). Vegetables and flowers mix indiscriminately, so have olive trees (Olea europaea var. communis) with marigolds planted in their posts or pear trees with garlic chives around their roots. You can try a cobblestone patio bordered by grapevine, fill in the blank side of your house with fruit and nut bearing trees interspersed with large swings and swing seats, an arch with roses on one side and a passion-fruit vine on the other, add container plants; cherry tomatoes, geraniums and lobelia all planted together in the porch, set a pebble bordered vegetable garden next to a tiny pond. The effect is simple and functional, chairs should be shaded by trees and surrounded by ornamental grasses, lavender and Oriental poppies which creates a perfect setting for an evening glass of wine or your morning cafe creme.
Posted by The Allotment Blogger on Monday, July 30, 2007
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