Tuesday 24 April 2018

The garden

I haven't really shown you the garden have I? Just the odd snippet and glimpse of it in a photograph. It's quite a nice garden, what the French call a 'parc' which really means it has a lot of trees in it I think.


Most of the trees appear to be specimen conifers, I can identify a monkey puzzle, swamp cypress and possible a sequoia. The other trees and shrubs are slowly revealing themselves as the weather improves. I'm pleased to see three laburnums, there used to be a lot of these in English gardens before people got nervous about the poisonous seeds. I think I also have some philadelphus and a tree peony. There is a small rose border by the house, we'll see how they get on.

The house is sideways onto the road with the wooded garden to the front and an ancient potager to the side (with a lovely village view), the back has only a couple of metres. Everything has got out of hand with some of the conifers way too tall and the limes in desperate need of pollarding. Fortunately there is more moss than lawn as mowing is hard work, we're on a slope and there are tree roots everywhere. It is a tranquil space though with the sound of the river Correze always present. When the sun is out there are tantalising glimpses of sparkling water.


Our sitting room is on the first floor and has large doors onto a balcony, it's almost like being in a tree canopy. Each day there are new surprises, I've discovered masses of lily of the valley growing, and primroses/primulas are everywhere. But most interesting are the 'lumps' of granite we have which are apparently Gallo-Roman stones used to hold funeral urns. One is now the temporary home of our weather station and it's lid my herb garden!


2 comments:

  1. Wonderful. Can't wait to see it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sadly I can't claim credit for it, but you will be pleased to hear I am planning a relaxing area perfect for an hour or so with a good book.

    ReplyDelete

Featured Post

Sweet was the walk along the narrow lane...

 is the opening line of William Wordworth's poem about walking and it's so relevant to our region of Corrèze. When we bought the hou...