France Trip—Summer 2007
In Summer 2007, we travelled to France to enjoy great food, fine wine, and of course, beautiful gardens!
You can view the trip flyer (as a PDF) and look at trip photos on our Flickr page.
Master Gardener French Garden Tour 2007
by Cathy Nell, tour leader
Florida Master Gardeners and their friends enjoyed ten days last June visiting some of the finest gardens in the world, learning about French flowers and gardening practices.
The trip began with rain. At the first stop, Parc Floral de la Source, the sky opened to a downpour lasting almost an hour. However, like all good gardeners, they only saw the rain as a much-needed soaking for the plants after a period of drought!
In the Loire Valley, the group stayed in Tours, a quaint town along the banks of the Loire River. Along the Boulevard just outside the hotel, a morning flower market lured the early risers to admire the cut flowers fresh from the Aalsmeer Flower Auction, local annuals and perennials, and hand-tied bouquets.
Then it was off to Chenonceau, to tour the 17th century chateau and admire the manicured formal gardens and promenades lined with venerable trees, and Chateau Valmer, a restored Italianate garden and working winery. The owner, Alix St. Venant, is a countess who knows how to roll up her sleeves and pull weeds in her vegetable garden! The group also found her to be a talented landscape designer and extremely knowledgeable about the host of landscape plants, trees and flowers at Valmer. Valmer is also a national repository for gourd seeds, catalogued and kept in freezers on the property. Following the garden tour, the group visited the winery, where they sampled the white and pink Vouvray wines for which the region is famous.
Roses were in bloom at Les Chemins de la Rose, where the MGs saw varieties old and new in a lovely park-like setting. Park curators explained their methods for pruning roses and controlling pests using biological controls wherever possible. There is considerable interest throughout France in minimizing the use of chemicals in the garden, and the MGs saw how insects, organic fertilizers and mulches are used to control insects and diseases.
The jewel of the Loire Valley gardens is undoubtedly Villandry, a restored 17th century formal garden surrounding a lovely chateau. The current owner, Henri Carvallo, explained the complex formal gardens, recreated from historical illustrations. The parterre garden includes a large kitchen garden where cabbages, beans and artichokes are surrounded by precise boxwood hedges, a diverse herb garden and arbors covered with grapes. Apple and pear trees are trained into low fences lining the paths. A romantic garden uses red, pink and white flowers to highlight shapes of hearts, daggers, and masks to symbolize the many moods of love, and a serene water garden for meditation draws visitors seeking a quiet, reflective spot.
1 | 2 Next page
