My recent lecture to a group of visiting UK garden enthusiasts, made me think about my experiences of gardening and garden design in France.  I was also keen to show them slides from the International Garden Festival at Chaumont, which I have been going to for years.

Chaumont is challenging for the average garden enthusiast, but a “must see” event for professionals, being a show committed to the outer reaches of contemporary garden design. Abstract themes have been set each year since 1992 to encourage designers to create the unexpected, to think “outside the box”. There is nothing quite like it anywhere else, although imitators come and go. Every year a number of visitors stay at our B & B or gîte to witness this amazing gardening event.

The list of themes is interesting, but bear in mind that when written in French many of them have dual or obscure meanings in a deliberate attempt by the organisers to illicit a range of responses from garden creators. I’ve talked about this show before, I know, but not provided this list:

¨  1992 Pleasure

¨  1993 Imagination during the economic crisis

¨  1994 Acclimatisation

¨  1995 Unexpected gardens

¨  1996 Too much technique, not enough poetry?

¨  1997 Water, water, everywhere

¨  1998 Ricochets

¨  1999 Only vegetables

¨  2000 Freedom

¨  2001 Carpet bedding etc

¨  2002 The Erotic Garden

¨  2003 Weeds

¨  2004 Chaos: order and disorder

¨  2005 Gardens have memories

¨  2006 Play in the garden

¨  2007 Mobiles: gardens for a world on the move

¨  2008 Gardens to share

¨  2009 Colour

This year’s event was surprising in many ways, with many gardens seeming to lack colour rather than celebrate it. There was much discussion on the use of black (is it a colour?)  and on the nature of gardens (what is a garden?) but fear not gentle reader, there were also plenty of plants to admire. The gardens are left in place to develop and grow from March to October and maintained by students of the horticultural college on the site.

I often take students attending Academy residential courses to Chaumont as a stimulus to debate. Some of the more animated discussions have gone on well into the night, lubricated by more than a little Touraine wine; such is the provocative nature of the festival. Garden designers on our CAD training events have been very enthusiastic in general, but even amateurs with us for the ‘Design your own Garden’ workshops have enjoyed it.

Our most popular course has proved to be the RHS Certificate in Horticulture (level 2), offered by distance learning with course notes on CD and support by post and email. Garden Design and Garden History are also attracting students, mostly British but also a few Americans. A few students live in France as we do, but most do not. We work closely with a distance learning college in Australia which gives us access to a very wide range of professionally written courses.

While we now spend a great deal of my working day teaching the science, art and craft that is horticulture, gardening and design, it keeps our feet on the ground to see the country folk around us working with nature and the seasons.

Many of our neighbours have vast gardens while others work in the fields of the Berry or the vineyards of the Touraine. Gardening tasks are often (I was going to say, religiously) undertaken on Saint’s Days and planting on St. Catherine’s Day (25^th November ) is a guarantee of success:  “a la Sainte Catherine, tout bois prend racine” – “on St. Catherine’s day, the trees take root”. We will plant a Magnolia grandiflora this year and have no doubt it will thrive, as did last year’s Cherry trees.

I like to talk to the locals about their customs and traditions and learn much about living in this rural community from them. We find we have adapted to the pace of life and like everyone, keep our eyes peeled for wild food such as mushrooms and walnuts while walking the dog through the countryside each day.

I also like to give something back and have helped identify plants, advised on pests and diseases and suggested horticultural techniques they may not be aware of locally. They don’t always accept my advice and no amount of self-promotion seems to impress them, but I have had some successes. I was recently discussing Cloque du Pécher (Peach Leaf Curl) because I needed a photograph of the disease for one of our RHS Certificate students. Would she be spraying for it? I asked the garden owner. Yes, I was told, but not until after the full moon! I should have known really: the region was once notorious for witch craft.

Teaching the science of horticulture is relatively straightforward: the facts are all in the course notes and students’ answers to test questions are either right or wrong. In addition to the RHS Certificate we also offer an Advanced Certificate and the RHS Diploma: a vocational qualification of some seriousness. Teaching garden design is different. The subject is a wide-ranging mixture of art, craft and science and opinions on garden aesthetics are subjects for debate rather than learning by rote.

Students are expected to work through the Certificate in Garden Design in around 700 hours but in practice you never stop learning with a subject like this. It involves everything from soil chemistry to playground health and safety, in addition to plant knowledge and drawing skills. The course has modules in garden history, surveying, drainage and rockwork. Even after designing more than 1000 gardens I would never claim to know it all and in fact one of the joys of teaching is learning from your students. It’s stimulating, challenging and still great fun after all these years.

Some of our students have asked me to get involved with projects they are working on. A recent design contract in Cornwall came to us from a student.

A few of our students clients have written to us to ask for references and many are amazed that training and qualifications are available in subjects like garden design and horticulture. I come across gardeners and garden designers in the UK and France with little interest, knowledge or experience charging as much as highly qualified professionals. I am proud to now be in a position to pass on what I know to those who wish to do better in the industry I have worked in all my life.

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!

One of the joys of teaching horticulture is the conversations you have with fellow garden designers, growers and landscapers. As part of a residential course on CAD held at our home in France recently, we visited The International Garden Festival at Chaumont where this year’s theme was “colour”.

The artists and designers seemed puzzled by the theme and had difficulty in just letting themselves go. Black was much in evidence. Black isn’t a primary, secondary, or tertiary colour. In fact, black isn’t on the artist’s colour wheel and usually isn’t considered a colour at all. Instead, black appears when you bring ANY colour to its darkest value.

Chaumont 2009 Garden in black

Artists, of course, do use black extensively, there exists a society for black plants and Karen Platt’s nursery near Sheffield, England, specialises in them.

This garden was constructed entirely in black and as we sat outside with our black standard poodle I told anyone who commented that she was the designer!

Europe’s entire production of Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’ seemed to have been requisitioned for the show while for the red gardens there was no shortage of  Imperata cylindrica Red Barron – Japanese Blood Grass.

Chaumont 2009 Garden with Imperata Red Baron set against Silver Birch logs

On the whole we found the use of colour at the show unadventurous and, at the time, disappointing. My thought is in a country where every roundabout and verge is a mass of colourful plants, the designers felt they had to be clever and come up with something different. In many cases, they failed to impress: pity.

But this is a show that rewards a little thought and looking through the photographs I took during the Garden Design Academy visit has been easily as exciting as seeing them in real life.
Back in Chabris, after a meal and a few glasses of white Touraine, we continued to chat about the use of colour. People have preferences but I have had several clients who have hated yellow, enough to tell me off severely when I allowed a few yellow flowered plants to stray into a planting scheme.

My own view is that it is actually hard to go wrong with colour in the garden: Nature didn’t employ a designer to create the wonderful scenes I see all around me (skipping around any religious view s you may have on the subject). But it is also possible to create some fascinating effects at any one time and throughout the seasons with careful design.
Just to prove it is possible I have started to establish a yellow garden, or rather, an area where many of the plants I grow have yellow foliage or flowers. I am particularly pleased that it seems possible to grow several variegated plants in close proximity: yet another general rule successfully broken!

Bee on Caryopteris Summer Sorbet

Residential courses are held at irregular intervals throughout the year at the Garden Design Academy, Chabris, France. Details on: http://www.gardendesignacademy.com

Chaumont 2009 Garden in Red

Autumn is a gorgeous time of the year here in Le Centre, bringing mushrooms, the grape harvest, wild game and relief from the heat of summer. It is a time of harvest festivals celebrating everything from Berry green lentils, to apples and pumpkins and, it seems, life in general. And all of this is played out against a backdrop of rich autumn colour from cultivated as well as wild trees and shrubs.

Apple Festival in the Sologne

France is a good country to see truly spectacular displays of autumn colour. So often the weather is fine at this time of the year, giving the ideal combination of sunny days and cool nights. Here in the Indre, we are surrounded by forests of oak, birch, hornbeam and other trees and nearby chateau parkland hosts fine, old heirloom trees that put on a magnificent display each year.

Autumn colour at the Chateau de Courson

But autumn colour is not just for grand spaces – it can be created in your own garden, giving you a display that is every bit as exciting. For many people planting in the garden often revolves around the spring and summer months – but autumn too is a time when the garden can be a place of real beauty.

Between our gardens at home and those we have planted for clients we grow a very wide selection of plants exhibiting autumn foliage colour and I am always disappointed when we are asked for a garden that is largely evergreen. When a garden does not change with the seasons, one misses out on the wonderful transformations that come with a natural landscape.

Acer palmatum disectum with autumn colour

Our best area at home features both trees and shrubs with many, such as Sorbus, also carrying berries. With a background of hawthorn and hornbeam hedges, pride of place must go to the Japanese maples, of which we have four sorts including the deeply cut foliage of our old Acer palmatum atropurpureum, currently turning deep crimson. Even more spectacular is Cotinus grace, now a huge bush after five happy years with us and Euonymus europaeus Red Cascade, a variety of our native spindle bush which grows wild in the countryside and gives us both colourful leaves and fruits.
Part of the skill of a garden designer is to exploit plants to enhance seasonal effects. For me, there are two ways to use autumn colour well. The first is to scatter appropriate plants throughout the garden so that the eye is drawn from one plant to the next in a visual journey. This technique sounds simple enough but with so many other factors to consider it can be difficult to achieve without compromising other planting – having carefully created a ‘white garden’ for instance, bright red autumn colour in this same area may come as a bit of a shock. And autumn colour viewed against a background of dead and dying herbaceous plants will inevitably detract from the effect unless you cut back to clear the area around them.
When designing your borders keep autumn in mind and if you have not included something autumnal by the time you are halfway down the bed, now is the time to add something. A deciduous Berberis here, a group of Ceratostigma there, adds areas of red and orange to the scene and creates hot spots of colour throughout the garden. For those with a mature garden consider removing one or two under-performing plants and replace with a clump of ornamental grasses or perhaps a small tree such as Prunus subhirtella Autumnalis, which provides both autumn foliage and flower.

Trees and shrubs for Autumn colour

If you have the space it may be easier to take the dramatic approach – concentrating plants within a section to create an autumn garden. As leaf colour changes day by day there is little need to select specific shades when a wild mixture of plants creates the most exciting display. Given the time of the year it would be worth constructing pathways to make it comfortable to reach, while a gazebo, summerhouse or other ‘abri de jardin’ would create a cosy spot to view the colours. The Japanese often design viewing points into their gardens: a place to linger and appreciate the scene that has been carefully crafted for visitors.

Rhus typhina Tigars Eyes

While I have suggested the use of coloured foliage, there are also plants with berries and flowers at this time of the year and your autumn garden might also contain some of these to extend the all too fleeting period of display from the changing leaves. An example of this type of garden might include a tree, Liquidambar in a larger garden, Rhus or Amelanchier if space is limited. Liquidambar with its Maple-like leaves is a favourite here in France, while Amelanchier boasts attractive shrimp-pink new leaves, white flowers and black berries in addition to its bright red autumn leaf colour. Common Rhus is lovely but we have just planted the variety Tigers Eyes which promises spectacular leaf colour from a more modest sized tree.
Next we might add a shrub and Arbutus could fit the bill very well. It is evergreen and at this time of the year carries both Lily of the Valley-like flowers and fruits which resemble strawberries. More flower and scent too, could be added using rose pink Viburnum bodnatense Dawn, which will continue to give pleasure throughout the winter. Down at ground level you could try the Autumn Crocus or Colchicum, with huge pink or white flowers. Waterlily is a double variety which has given us much pleasure over the years.
In between these a few herbaceous perennials: Anemones like September Charm, and perhaps a few grasses. In our last English garden we had a huge clump of Cortaderia richardii, a form of Pampas from New Zealand, but also Miscanthus in several varieties, Pennisetum and others, all adding to the beauty of the garden with their feathery flower panicles.
While our new autumn garden is young you could fill in the gaps with some Pansies, but the allocated space will soon fill and give pleasure for years to come.

AUTUMN COLOUR FAVOURITES
I am always being asked for my favourite plants – a impossible request when I love so many and my choice changes faster than the seasons – but I will suggest a few you might like to try.
Trees for autumn leaf colour
• Liquidambar (Sweet Gum) with maple-like leaves and corky bark, leaf colour in good forms is crimson and gold. Beware of cheap seedling-grown plants which may not colour well; try Worplesdon or some other known variety.
• Quercus rubra (or Red Oak) is a large tree planted extensively in local woodlands. Best colour is on lime-free soil.
• Sorbus aucuparia Asplenifolia has both orange berries and bright red foliage in the autumn. There are many other types of Sorbus, all of them worth considering.
Shrubs for autumn leaf colour
• Acer japonicum Aconitifolium and other Japanese Maples for attractive cut foliage turning crimson. Best in a little shade.
• Cotinus coggygria Grace is a spectacular variety of the Smoke Tree, native to the south of France, with purple-red foliage turning scarlet. The leaves are translucent so if you can, position it to be viewed in the evening sun.
• Deciduous forms of Azalea colour richly with yellow, orange and crimson forms according to variety. Bright flowers in the spring, often sweetly scented. If you have the space and soil which is not chalky, grow lots!
Autumn flowering plants
• Hebe Great Orme. A superb evergreen shrub whose pink and white flowers are produced over a very long period, often to Christmas.
• Kaffir Lily, Schizostylis, a South African bulb flowering in shades of pink and ideal for a warm spot.
• Anemone hybrida Honorine Jobert with pure white flowers and yellow stamens, looking lovely next to Maples in our garden.
• Miscanthus sinensis Zebrinus. A late flowering grass with gold bands decorating the leaves. Great in cut flower arrangements.
Plants with berries / fruits
• Pyracantha is a spiny shrub often trained against walls or used as a hedge. Stunning crops of yellow, orange or red berries. The birds will thank you for it.
• Pernettya: highly decorative berries on small evergreen bushes, but only for acid soils.
• Malus. Crab Apples in a wide range of forms, but generally ideal for a small garden. I’m fond of yellow fruited Golden Hornet.
• Cotoneaster. There are low ones, tall ones, variegated plants and weeping forms. For a large space Cornubia is unsurpassed and for yellow berries match it with Rothchildianus

Ask me tomorrow and I would come up with a completely different list of favourites but I hope this brief look at the possibilities will inspire you to celebrate autumn colour in your own garden

Every so often I am invited back to the UK to design a garden and my most recent trip took me down to Cornwall. This is the county where I spend most of my childhood and my Grandmother, now 103 years old, still lives there.

Many things in the gardens seemed so different to those of my new life in central France; orange Montbretia (Crocosmia) was everywhere to be seen, in gardens and hedgerows, a South African plant which has naturalised in the county.

Montbresia growing wild on a clifftop in North Cornwall

I lifted a few of the common form from Grannies’ garden and from a nursery bought a pot each of Buttercup, Emberglow and George Davidson for a new border at home.

Hydrangea macrophylla varieties were in full flower in the South West, while the one in my garden, brought over from the UK in the removal van, had finished long ago. I’m afraid I could not resist buying a Hydranea as well, but this time chose H. paniculata Kyushu to go in the shady border under the Sequoia, which is developing into a Japanese / Chinese planting area surrounding a large granite lantern.

A press pack has just arrived in our post box, detailing the events and themes for this autumn’s Journees des Plantes at Courson, south of Paris.

 
Two plant shows are held at the Chateau de Courson each year, prestigious events drawing amateur and professional gardeners and horticulturists from all over Europe, both to visit and to exhibit.

 
It  is a highlihght of our gardening year and this year we have been invited to speak to the members of the International Camellia Society and the RHS Camellia, Magnolia and Rhodoendron Group on the Friday evening. Our theme is to be gardening and garden design in France, looking in particular at the annual GardenFestival at Chaumont.

 
Each year we limit ourselves on the amount of plants we can buy at Courson and every year I regret not buying so many beautiful things. In the days when we were building £100,000 gardens for a living a few plants here or there hardly registered on our budget. These days we have to watch our pennies a little more carefully!

Largetroemia indica

Last year we bought our first Lagerstroemia indica, from the master of the genus, Demartis of Bergerac. We chose the variety Yang Tse, a family reminder that my Grandmother and Grandfather lived alongside the river of the same name, when he was architect to Shanghai Municipal Council prior to and during the invation of China by Japan.

This plant suffered during its first winter but is now a healthy bush, covered with flower buds which are just starting to open.

A Mimosa bought at the same time did not survive the cold; an appeal for a replacement from the nursery resulted in a letter telling me off for not looking after it! Caveat emptor!