France - winter into spring

'Clearly it's time for a rethink to realise the potential of this diverse group [perennials] of plants.' Michael King

During the winter the big Norwegian maple that dominates the courtyard has been reduced by half, leaving just the big trunk and some shortened arms above. This tree is glorious in its own right, but it is simply too big for the space. It provides shade in the heat of the summer, but we also need some of the garden to have light, so that attractive plants can be allowed to flourish. I also asked the 'paysagiste' to invigorate two hazel bushes by removing a third of the older branches and to dig out a cotoneaster to provide space for future planting. What actually happened was that the guys who did the work cut the tops off the hazels parallel to the ground, and did pretty much the same to a philadelphus, some tall rose bushes and the cotoneaster. I think it is partly that my wishes got lost in translation and partly that that the French gardeners know what is good for me – pruning à la française! There is no damage here that 5 years of growth won't sort out.

We had hoped to replant the large area in the middle of the garden this spring. Lucia from Parterres en Kit has created a planting plan consisting of grasses and perennials suitable for the Burgundian conditions and based on the principles of prairie planting as used by Piet Oudolf, Michael King and Noel Kingsbury. However, the work on the roof, which requires this patch of land to be left so the roofers can walk to and fro, has been postponed to June, so all I can do for the moment is to sprinkle some seeds of meadow flowers and hope that we have something other than bare earth to take us through the summer.

The beds around the edges are now flourishing. There were snowdrops everywhere and narcissi blooming where I moved them last year. The hydrangeas are throwing out new leaf shoots and seem to have completely recovered from last year's summer drought. Vinca minor, flag irises, peonies, cistus, tulips all look healthy.

 

 











Violets, primroses, winter aconites and hellebores look lovely in their new positions in the side borders. I feel that the edges of the big picture are comfortably settled.

With the reduction of the trees, the landscape does look rather different. The patch underneath the group that comprises the Norwegian maple, two hazels and the philadelphus grabs my attention. I can make a little woodland garden that joins this area to the dinosaur garden behind it. Last spring I moved many of the snowdrops, that had colonised the small bed that will become the herb garden, to places under trees. Snowdrop bulbs are small and many have escaped me and flowered in the 'wrong' places this year. I move them 'in the green' to the shade of the deciduous trees, digging up the beautiful but pernicious wild celandine plants one by one as I go. 

        

 Some tiny tulip and crocus plants also escaped the fork last summer, so they go to the fringes of the shade that will be cast by these trees when their leaves burst later in the spring. 3 tiny sarcococca bushes with their delicious spring perfume will be happy here as well. There are violets to be harvested from other parts of the garden and lamium from the garden in Dorset. Necessity is the mother of invention.