A Gardener in France

The visit to Courson was a wonderful day out but the International Camellia Society had arranged further trips for the following day and I was invited.
First stop was a tour of the Arboretum Vilmorin, courtesy of a personal invitation from Mme. Natalie de Vilmorin, whose family owns the property. The four hectare arboretum is located on the site of a former hunting lodge of Louis XIV, acquired by Philippe-André de Vilmorin in 1815. He transformed the grounds into a collection of trees and shrubs acquired by plant hunters from around the world. The arboretum contains nearly 2,300 identified species, many rare and large.

Arboretum Vilmorin

 Although flowers were few and far between, to be able to walk amongst so many rarities with such a knowledgable host was a special treat.

We were invited to come again in the spring, an invitation I, for one, will be taking up.

Our second stop, after a meal in the Boulogne-Billancourt suburb, was to the Jardins Albert-Kahn. These were created between 1900 and 1913 by Albert Kahn, a banker and keen amateur horticulturist. There are several styles of garden, ranging from the Japanese garden and village, the undoubted star of the site, to formal French and English gardens. Amazing too, were the garden of blue Cedars and the recreation of forest habitats.

Jarden Albert-Kahn: Japenese village

It is so easy to lose yourself in this fantastic garden and so difficult to believe you are in the centre of France’s largest city.  Kahn is also famous for his photograph collections, recording the lives of ordinary people from around the world. He sent out photographers to bring back this record and they are regularly exhibited to today’s visitors.

Jardins Albert-Kahn: French gardens

As before, flowers were hard to find and another visit in the spring is a must for next year.

At the end of a day visiting Courson, laden down with goodies, tired but happy, it was time to sing for my supper. I was asked to speak to the ICS group in the evening and had prepared a talk with slides to illustrate my subject: gardening in France, with particular reference to the International Festival of Gardening at Chaumont.

It’s been I while since I have lectured in this way but everyone was encouraging and I muddled through as best I could. I think it went OK, at least they didn’t refuse to give me the gift they had brought me: an unusual Camellia species – Cam. grijsii. I am still skipping about with excitement over the gift.

The following text and photograph was found here: http://sazanka.org

Camellia grijsii

Camellia grijsii (长瓣短柱茶 in Chinese) Hance (1879) is a wild species of section Paracamellia. It is related to C. sasanqua, C. oleifera and C. kissii. It was collected in 1861 in Fujian by C.F.M. de Grijs. It is distributed in China (Fujian, Hubei, Sichuan, Guangxi) and used for a high-quality oil production.

Camellia grijsii has great hybridizing potential. Two plants in my garden have small leaves with impressed veins and very columnar shape. I believe there are also varieties with larger leaves, but I am specifically interested in small-leaved cultivars.

Another great feature of C. grijsii is its cluster-flowering habit. However in my garden C. grijsii flowers from January to March, so it will be a challenge to cross it with Fall-flowering sasanquas. Probably I will have to store some pollen from sasanquas in refrigerator for a couple of months.

The plant itself was grown by Trehane Nurseries and Penny Trehane (yes, the Penny Trehane) was part of the group. Like so many famous and talented nursery-folk I have met over the years, she is a charming champion of her subject, an expert in Blueberries as well as Camellias.

My new Camellia will sit well with the sasanquas I bought at the show.

As noted in my previous post, last weekend I was the guest of the International Camellia Society and the RHS Rhododendron, Camellia and Magnolia group, as nice a bunch of people as you could hope to meet in a garden in France.

Friday we visited Les Journée des Plantes at Domaine de Courson, south of Paris. This is my favourite plant fairs and we try to go every year – so much easier now that we live in France, only two hours away by motorway.

Courson - the chateau from across the lake

The ICS had its own stand and I took the opportunity to meet them and buy a Camellia, a variegated sasanqua variety called Okina-Goroma, with pink flowers during the winter. I hope to keep this in a pot in the unheated conservatory which covers the north side of our house, to enjoy the flower and scent as you come to the front door.

As usual the range and quality of plants was astonishing and although I bought several, there were many wonderful plants I wanted which had to be left. Last year I regretted not buying a Skimmia japonica Magic Marlot and I made up for it at the stand of Pépinière Tous au Jardin, from whom I also bought a smashing Hydrangea paniculata called Great Star.

Hydrangea paniculata Great Star

The nursery had many fine Hydrangeas and I was pleased to see they won an award for H. involucrata Mihara Kokomoe Tama, together with the Press Award for the best display.

Also on the stand was Mahonia nitens Cabaret, a new variety which is already on my “must have” list for next year.

Mahonia nitens Cabaret

It cannot be said that plants are cheap in France, and with my pocket money disappearing fast I had to be quite selective. Guillot supplied me with a couple of Roses, including one from their Generosa range, similar to David Austens modern shrub roses.

We have been meaning to visit the Cayeux iris fields for years but have yet to make it: next June I hope. In the mean time, I have satisfied my desire for their plants by buying three, together with a Hemerocallis called Burning Daylight. From Darmartis I bought our second Lagerstromia, this one a dark pink, purple almost, called Dynamite. They also had variegated Euphorbia Tasmanian Tiger and this was added to the collection in the plant creche.

I had replaced a couple of plants left in the UK: Salvia uliginosa and Phlomis purpurea, bought a couple of grasses and a very pretty strawberry coloured Hydrangea hortensis Mirai before I relaesed I couldn’t afford to eat for the rest of the trip and called a halt to it. I made do with looking at everything the other members of the group had bought, jealously eying the Magnolias in particular.

This show can bring out the worst in you if you are not careful!

I look forward to Courson, the twice-yearly plant fair held at the Domaine de Courson, Essone, in the countryside south of Paris.

If you are passionate about plants the event is blissful, with nurseries from around Europe showing their wares in the park of the chateau. It has a relaxed country fair feel but the staggering range of  high quality and rare plants available to purchase always leaves me with a feeling of shock from overexposure to so many bank account-draining temptations.

This year there is an added thrill for me having been asked to talk to the International Camellia Society (and the RHS Rhodendron, Camellia and Magnolia Group) at their hotel after visiting the show on the Friday. I am busily preparing slides for them, concentrating on my other favourite French gardening event, annual the International Festival at Chaumont.

On Saturday 17^th they are off on a trip to a couple of unique gardens, the Arboretun Vilmorin and the Jardin Albert Kahn and I am delighted to have been invited. In fact, wild horses failed in their attempt to drag me away!

Les Jounees des Plantes de Courson is on 16^th – 18^th of October. You really ought to go.

www.domaine-de-courson.fr

Nature is bountiful at this time of the year, here in central France. We never fail to return from walking the dog without something in our pockets and at the moment, we are mostly collecting Walnuts.

 There are still plenty of Hazel nuts around and as we become accustomed to the area we are beginning to work out which trees are not picketed, where to find the largest nuts and which trees are the most productive. This morning we returned with a basket full of nuts and half a dozen ceps, our favourite edible mushrooms.

Cyclamen growing wild in the Robinia woods

Locals are often very generous when they know you are interested. With a new kitchen recently fitted we have been testing out the equipment by jam and chutney making. Not having fruit of our own, people have been giving us bags of peaches, plums apples, pears and quince. Each of them receives a pot of jam from us in return. As I speak, Chantal is cracking walnuts ready to bake a cake this afternoon.

Colchicum - autumn crocus - growing wild in central France

Autumn flowers are also much in evidence now that the weather is cooling, the day length reducing and the rains returning.

Where once the ground was speckled with orchids there are now wild Cyclamen, Colchicums and, an exciting find, Saffron Crocus.

 
Here on the edge of the Touraine the grape harvest is all in, picked last week when it was warm and sunny. Mostly the crop was machine harvested but, talking to local growers, they are increasingly hand picking to improve quality. We are great fans of the local white but are still to be convinced that the red is worth the effort to get to know.

We are still recovering from yesterday. We had a business meeting in Valancay at 11 am and on arrival in the town the temperature was 17 degrees C. An hour later it was thermometer on the car dashboard read 21 and by the time we reached home it was 25. 

The atmosphere was strange and people in the town reacted to it. Out walking in the afternoon we had hardly got to the end of the road when someone stopped us to show off his new motorbike and offered us drinks to celebrate. Staggering off to continue our exercise we were stopped a few yards on to chat with an elderly lady who was in tears recalling her dogs and admiring ours.

In the park a man had his head in his hands but beamed when the dog wandered over and gave him a lick. Prior to that we had been sitting on the beach watching the river, when our decorator came over to sit with us for a while. A strange day ended with a huge thunder storm, with a bright red sky and a game of scrabble.

Perhaps someone had drugged the water but according to the weather man a hurricane had moved up the Atlantic dragging hot African air up through France. Who needs alcohol with weather like this!