Chapeau !

Whenever I am feeling a little depressed about gardening in Gascony in general or about our garden in particular I make my way to La Coursiana, a garden run and owned by Véronique and Arnaud Delannoy at Le Romieu. This I did last weekend, and I can only say that I have never seen it looking so good. Readers of my last blog will know that I have just returned from visiting the 'Great Gardens of Cornwall', and to that I think one can reasonably add 'of the World', so some comparisons were inevitable, even if, despite its very many trees, of which more later, one cannot call La Coursiana a 'Woodland garden', which is what the Cornish gardens are. How should one classify it? Well it is certainly not 'French' for there is not a sign of a clipped hedge anywhere. There is a 'water feature' with what might be called a mini cascade, but since it turns out to be a very cleverly designed herb/medicinal garden it does not bear much relationship to the formal château gardens, of which Versailles is the great example. The feel I guess is rather 'English' though there is no herbaceous or mixed border as such, just literally hundreds of plants of every description, arranged around the rather modest but attractive house, in Island beds, and under trees. If this sounds a bit messy, it is saved from that criticism by two ingredients. The first is its site with on what I guess must be the east side a lovely view across a small lake of the Collegiate Church of Saint Pierre.

The second ingredient is Véronique Delannoy's wonderful sense of colour and more generally a great skill in the placing of plants. The result is through the year a succession of planting of annuals, or biannuels such as Forget-me-knots, Hollyhocks, Impatiens and Dahlias to name just the most obvious, these in often vibrant colours. At the moment it is rose time. I was told that there are more than five hundred different roses to be found in the garden, and I can well believe it, though I have just noticed that the pamphlet states only 350!. What is perhaps the most striking feature of these is the eclectic choice. I have never hidden the fact that I am something of a plant snob, and this applies particularly to roses, where anything post the Second World war is viewed with great suspicion. At La Coursiana one will find all manner of roses both ancient and modern, even roses produced by - I hardly dare mention their names - Delbard and Meilland. And as for their names, they are not ones that any self-respecting rosarian would want to mention. But what this garden shows is just how silly I have been. In fact some time ago I fell in love with R.Lovely Lady - semi-double blush pink flowers on a tallish bush; repeats well - and this time it was R. Bossa Nova - pink again, but this time fully double. Both date from the 1980s. Much more recent is R. Yann Arthus-Bertrand, a fully in the face Meilland orange/red. Much admired by Véronique Delannoy is R.Line Renaud with large hybrid tea flowers of a darkish red, but as its great feature a marvellous scent - and this is perhaps a good moment to stress that the idea that modern roses lack scent is a myth. One has only got to think of the many David Austin roses almost all of which excel in this department.. Finally amongst the hundreds of different roses there is a climber that I would love to have, if only I could think of where to put it - we seriously lack high walls. It is as its name, R.Papi Delbard,  indicates a Delbard rose with large fully double, old-fashioned abricot/yellow flowers with a strong scent that repeats well.

Of course there is much more to La Coursiana than just roses or indeed wonderful mixed planting. It started life back in the 1970s as a serious arboretum, the inspiration of an eminent botanist Gilbert Cours-Darne, with inter alia a national collection of Tilias (limes). Thus anyone interested in planting trees should first pay a visit to this garden, with just this caveat that I guess it has a little more access to water than some of us can provide, and also I believe that the soil has some acidity, at least in certain areas, and this again is difficult to find at least in some parts of Gascony. A tree that goes back to the 1850s is a marvellous specimen of a Quercus robur, or English oak, and it is worth visiting the garden just to see it. At the back of the main house is a very good example of an Aesculus californica, and finally what was in full flower when I was there, a Styrax japonicus covered in bell-shaped white flowers. I have tried various members of the Styrax family - I am particularly fond of S.obassia - but without success, I guess because I have not provided enough water, but clearly they can be grown.

I have no hesitation in calling La Coursiana a Great Garden. One of the many reasons for doing so is that when you look around it almost every plant looks contented, a feature that takes me back many years to my first visit to Sissinghurst, and I can hardly pay this garden a greater compliment. It also provides excellent home-made sorbets, but if I have one regret it is that there are no 'cream teas', or indeed no home-made cakes which was one of the great features of my visit to the Cornish gardens. I blame Marie Antoinette for the lack of good cake in France, but surely it is time for the French to forgive and forget, so that this great gap in French cuisine can be remedied.