As you already know, I love flowers and gardens. We have just spent twelve days in Tasmania and I just loved the spring blossoms, particularly the “natives”, including one of my great favourites – the wattle, Australia’s national flower – of which there are many varieties. The flowers below are not necessarily indigenous to Tasmania or to Australia, for that matter, but we saw them everywhere. Perhaps some of my readers can identify the species that I’m not sure of below.
Every time we go from Blois to Amboise, we pass Château de Chaumont, which stands majestically above the Loire River, with a quaint little row of houses below.
I visited it some years ago and was not very impressed with the inside which is rather delapidated. It must have been in the winter too because I don’t remember the gardens at all and I found the view of the river quite austere. Quite by accident today, we decided to visit the gardens where the 20th edition of the International Garden Festival is being held.
What a wonderful discovery! The gardens, with the château as a backdrop, are absolutely delightful. I just love the colours and the wonderful, sweeping view of the Loire which in summer is far more attractive than in winter, I can assure you!
The festival entries are a little uneven in quality – some are lovely while others seem somewhat naive. But all thirty gardens are interesting.
We then visited the vegetable garden and the historical garden with its sweeping cedars.
Despite the price (11 euro per person), I’m definitely coming back again next year!
International Garden Festival of Chaumont Château de Chamont Loire Valley between Blois and Amboise April to October every year
Yesterday, I picked up Jane, my faithful friend from high school days, who still lives in my hometown (Townsville, whose name, to French people, borders on the absurd, but it was founded by Sir Robert Towns) at Gare du Nord in Paris and drove to Blois. Jane is a seasoned traveller, with friends across the world, and often comes to visit. The Tom Tom took us on a very strange but competely unencumbered route out of the city and a couple of hours later we were in Blois and I was able to introduce Jane to Closerie Falaiseau.
SANS keys. Again. Fortunately we’ve set up a code box system with the key inside for our gîte guests so were able to get in. I was relieved because I didn’t want to admit to Relationnel that I’d forgotten my keys again. The only problem is that we could get into the gîte OK, but not into our part of the house, for which I needed the key to the back garden. So I had to ring Relationnel after all. Fortunately, he’s so organised that his set of keys was in the car.
It was great to explore the garden and see what had grown since last Sunday. More gladioli have bloomed and we now have three different colours. Not very straight admittedly but I’m still amazed that they have grown at all. The Pierre Ronsard roses on the front steps are in full bloom again and our multicoloured yellow-to-pink Saharan rose bush that we bought at Orchaise Priory at the beginning of June has three roses and lots of buds.
All the wizened potatoes we planted two weeks ago have taken but I’m very disappointed that the raspberries are not forthcoming. Jane is enjoying the wild strawberries growing in the garden of the little house though. What a pity I don’t like strawberries!
Each time we go to Blois, we fall in love with the garden again. In June, we had masses of honeysuckle and roses. Now the outside fence is lined with light and dark pink hollyhocks. The view as you drive down the street towards the house is quite spectacular.
Inside, the prettiest flowers at the moment are the deep pink hydrangeas. These extraordinary flowers range in colour from a bluish mauve to light or dark pink depending on the aluminium content of the soil. They’re extremely popular in Brittany, where they are usually mauve. We have several bushes in the front garden and nearly a whole wall of them at the side of the house near the bread oven.
The other flower just coming into bloom is the Rose of Sharon, which can be white, pink or mauve. We have one of each! The flowers themselves look surprisingly like hibiscus but the leaves are different and they can grow into quite a large tree. The genus is actually hibiscus syriacus. In French, they are known as altheas. Hollyhocks come from the same family. Our grape vine is producing large bunches of black grapes but Mr Previous Owner told us that the ones that manage to escape the birds aren’t very tasty which is a pity. The wisteria is growing like crazy and still flowering.
Our trumpet creeper seems to be a lot later than most people’s and its lovely dark orange flowers are only just coming into bloom. Next time we’re in Blois, I imagine the whole vine will be covered. It looks wonderful on the side of the little half-timbered tower on the far corner of the house which also has a tall hollyhock in front.
The two rose bushes we bought from the Orchaise Priory are coming along well. They lost their roses quite quickly after replanting, but we pruned as instructed and there are lots of new buds. We have a lavendar bush in flower next to one of the them. The roses on the front steps had totally disappeared but are about to flower again as well.
And do you remember those potatoes we planted in the rain in May? Well, we ate the first batch this weekend. Just one plant produced about 10 medium potatoes. We were a bit disappointed though because they’re a little floury. We prefer the sort you bake in the oven. So Jean Michel dug a new patch of ground and we planted some organically-grown ones that we really like and that had sprouted during our two-week absence. They should be ready for picking when we get back from Australia in mid-October.
No, I’m not talking about our Renaissance house built in 1584 but about the little house next door which Mr Previous Owner had the foresight to buy while the ageing owner was still living there, thus guaranteeing that there would be no close (and potentially noisy) neighbours. The little house includes a barn and both buildings give directly onto our garden. When we move into the Closerie for good in October 2014 after Relationnel retires, he will completely renovate the little house and turn it into gîte and we will occupy the “big” house completely.
In the meantime, we’ve turned the ground floor of the big house into a gîte and when we come for weekends, we use the upstairs, which has two bedrooms, a bathroom and a beautifully dimensionsed living room, all overlooking the unbuilt (and unbuildable) land opposite. On the other side is the Loire River. Nothing can be built there because it’s floodable. We’re not afraid of flooding because we figure that if our house has been here for 400 years, it’s pretty safe.
Initially, we thought we’d have a makeshift kitchen in the little room next to the living room but after banging my head on the low doorway and learning that anything you do in the living room can be heard in the bedroom of the gîte below, I came up with the brilliant idea of using the little house instead.
It’s somewhat delapidated after years of not being used, but after a good clean and airing, the kitchen, which gives directly onto the garden, is perfectly usable. The sink has cold water so we installed a dishwasher and brought in other bits and pieces of furniture from the other rooms left by Mr Previous Owner. We even have a marble-topped wash stand that makes a perfect sideboard. That way, even if we don’t have anyone staying in the gîte when we come, we don’t have to clean it all again when we leave! Relationnel was a little reticent at first, but the system is working well. We bought a garden table and two chairs so that we can sit outside as well, particularly when we’re having a barbecue. Sometimes, we “picnic” in our real garden!
In the living room of the little house there is an unusual fireplace made of very dark brick. We haven’t decided yet whether to keep it or not when we renovate. It seems a bit massive. It’s actually darker than in the photo, almost black. What do you think we should do with it? Unfortunately all the oak beams will need to be stripped as well.
The garden is overgrown, but we actually like being surrounded by waist-high daisies and it has the tallest hollyhock we’ve ever seen. It must be about 4 metres. There are wild strawberries as well but unfortunately for Relationnel (I don’t like strawberries), something is getting to them before they turn ripe each time. When we eat in the garden, it’s like being on holidays!
June is a wonderful month in the Loire Valley because all the roses are out. I’ve already told you the story of our Madame Meilland or “Peace” roses and our Pierre Ronsard climbing roses. Yesterday morning, as we were having breakfast in the kitchen, which looks out into the courtyard in front of the house, I realised that the stone wall next to the front gate was looking a little bare. We discussed the possibilities and decided climbing roses would be the perfect solution.
So in the afternoon we went to visit the botanic gardens at Prieuré d’Orchaise, only 11 kilometers from Blois, who were selling rose bushes this weekend. This delightful 3 hectare park overlooking the luxuriant Cisse Valley, is next to a Romanesque bell-tower built in 1060 by monks from Marmoutiers. The garden’s founder, Hubert Treuille, has collected more than 2,000 varieties of plants from across the globe.
When we got there, we spoke to the very friendly and helpful gardener and told him what we wanted – a hardy climbing rose that would have lots of flowers very quickly. He suggested a variety called Saharan whose flowers change from pink to abricot as they mature. I didn’t find the potted example he showed us particularly appealing so he sent us to look at a well in the garden where the roses were growing. It was so stunning that we immediately went back and bought it as it was the only one left!
We thought we should also have a climbing rose outside the front fence (well, it’s a stone wall really) on the second disused gate that we’ve just repainted. We initially thought we’d had to replace it altogether but after treating it for rust, repainting it and removing the black plastic from behind, it is as good as new and ready for our new Pierre Ronsard. We then got the gardener to explain how to prune our different rose bushes so that they would be as lovely as his.
I knew you had to cut off the faded roses but wasn’t sure exactly how. So he showed us that below the flower, you first have a cluster of three leaves, then five, so you should always cut just (on a slant) above the cluster of five. That way, you’re encouraging the new wood to grow. When you’re pruning in the spring, you have to cut off the dead wood and prune drastically.
After we’d bought our roses we then went to visit the rest of the garden which is very lovely and has a beautiful waterlily pond with cypresses in the background. We had just missed the peonies but will make sure we go there earlier next year during the peony weekend and buy a few bushes. And we’ll definitely be visiting regularly to get helpful advice from the gardener who even gave us his phone number!
