Nothing to do with our garden - we have only got to seven and I am not sure that glorious would be the right adjective - but everything to do with Bernard Lacrouts' garden nursery which this year is celebrating its twenty years of existence. I have written about it before, and no doubt will again since it just happens to be the best nursery for herbaceous plants that I know of in these parts, though if you live in the Ariege I suspect that Le Jardin de Taurignan is of a similar high quality. I could not go to the Anniversary Open Day, but have paid a recent visit and was kindly given a memento of the event in the form of a Japanese clochette, which I am hoping might help deter the deer which here seem to be on the increase and are rivalling rabbits as our number one enemy.
As I have also written before one of the pleasures of visiting the nursery, which is close to Vic en Bigorre just of the Pau road at Sanous, is that Bernard Lacrouts is extremely pleasant as well as being helpful; ditto his colleague 'Ann' - I have put her name in inverted commas since I am not sure that I have got it right - who as well as helping in the nursery is a champion snowboarder and Archer. Another pleasure is that it always looks well looked after and for most of the year is very colourful. And then there is the very wide choice. Just looking through the catalogue, which can be consulted on line - www.unjardinvivaces.fr - one will find at least 15 different sorts of achilleas, including one of my favourite plants, Achillea Moonshine, ten agastache, which sadly do not seem to like me - not enough drainage? - 30 asters, 50 hardy geraniums, and God knows how many different sorts of day lilies and salvias. Moreover, in amongst what I would call bog standard plants which are nevertheless necessary to provide the backbone to a garden, one will find plenty of new, at least to me, and exciting plants. Last year I came across Patrinia scabiosifolia, which I still have not acquired since having put them aside on my recent visit to buy, I promptly went off without them. It is difficult to describe but a bit like the wild valerian, but instead of being on the pink side of white the flowers are yellow. This may not sound very exciting but for me it stands out in a crowd, as even more so does the plant that caught my eye on this visit Mathiasella bupleuroides Green Dream. This you will not find in many catalogues but can be found like everything else on the net, where on one site it is called the" 'must have' plant of Chelsea" but only of 2007. So six years to get to Gascony but it is has been worth the wait!
My worry about both these plants is that I am not sure how easily they will adapt to our garden since cool shade which I suspect they might prefer is almost totally absent. So for the moment Green Dream will remain in a pot. A plant that would certainly do and one that was recommended by Bernard Lacrouts was Geranium Dreamlands. This was another plant that in my excitement with other choices I failed to buy. It is apparently a pinkish version of the star rated Geranium Rozanne, which amongst other things means that it has a very long flowering period, and I will certainly be buying it in the autumn. What I did buy, and this a plant that would adorn any garden is Nepeta yunnanensis Blue Dragon. I suppose that it is about 40 cms high, it stands up very straight so does not need staking, and has the look more of penstemon than a nepeta, in that the actual flower is quite large, the colour being a good deep, perhaps slightly purplish blue.
Finally, I just want to mention again a plant that is at the moment one of the most attractive plants in our garden. Its common name is Ribbed Melilot, or more scientifically Mililotus officinalis. It varies in height but can probably get to a meter, pale yellow but stands out from a far. You will not find it in many catalogues, though it does get into my 2003-2004 RHS Plant Finder, since it is more normally considered a weed. This I think is a great mistake, and perhaps I will be able to persuade Bernard that this is the case. If I can't tant pis, but a visit to his nursery will remain one of my greatest gardening pleasures.
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