Promise
There is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre
in its sky...
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The garden in France is still a building site,
but it reveals itself in the golden sunshine of a few days in
November. The light filters through the leaves of the large Norwegian
maple which shades the ground where the aconites will be blooming
after Christmas, but which now is covered in stone and plaster dust.
As I remove the annual weeds from the soil
which has just drained after previous rains, flights of storks call
to each other high above, on the way to their winter homes. Forty or
fifty of them in strings, constantly changing position in the air –
absolutely magical companions to an hour or two's gardening. They are
a metaphor for the gardening year: nature moves on to a place where
the new cycle can begin.
I retire to sit by the fire during the dark
months of winter, to think and to plan.
France in autumn
Bittersweet October. The perfect pause between
the opposing miseries of summer and winter. Carol Bishop Hipps
Bittersweet indeed. The anticipation was sweet
...
When we arrived, the air of the courtyard was
thick with dust. The builders were throwing timber, earth and
terracotta tiles out of the windows of one section of the building
and onto the 'flower beds'. They could be excused for thinking that
they weren't spoiling a beautiful garden, since few plants were
flowering, but I think their main concern was to get the dusty job
finished as soon as possible and never mind the impact on the
immediate environment. Then they sat in the shade of the field maple
and filbert trees to clean the tiles, adding mud to the already dusty
earth.
I don't know why I thought I could make a
garden on a building site, but I do know that nature is very
resilient and will recover quickly. The last roses around the edges
of the site are still beautiful, the hazel nuts are ripe and as the
seasons turn, I turn to my drawing board and plans for creating a
grass-free lawn, amongst other things.
France in late summer
'Ah, summer, what power you have to make us
suffer and like it.'
Russell Baker
I had hoped to make a comparison between the
French garden in late summer and in early autumn. However, I became a
bit despondent and stopped writing. This is what I remember.
The end of the summer brought a heatwave in
France and we are were keen to see what the garden looked like in the
sunshine. Steve had pruned the climbing roses – a single crimson
over a stone arch, a single burgundy and a double pink on the walls
that surround the courtyard - and they had put out healthy stems and
flowers. Self-sown buddleia was flowering freely against a
new-rendered wall, doing a good job of softening its edges and
attracting clouds of butterflies. Ever-reliable Japanese anemone and
golden rod stand stately, defying their surroundings. The whole area
is shaded by Norwegian maple and filberts, giving height and shade.
But the flower beds are largely empty now,
with just a few hollyhocks and Echinops still clinging on. Bindweed
had taken hold and the stone paths were obscured by dandelions and
other weeds, so a radical clearing is the only possible choice of
gardening style.
