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.

Five winners for a Gascon Spring

Readers of these blogs will know that I am not a great fan of Springtime in Gascony, certainly not a patch on English springs, and a recent visit to the 'great gardens of Cornwall' has only reinforced my view. Of course these gardens, many of them well over a hundred years old, are exceptional. Everything there conspires - climate, acid soil, and deep valleys running down to the sea - to produce really dramatic effects, with azealeas, camellias, magnolias, and rhododendrons leading the charge, not to mention a thousand tree ferns. Here some of us can do camellias and magnolias but even these with some difficulty, so what are we left with for the Spring offensive.

Well first and foremost I would recommend is Prunus x subhirtella 'Autumnalis', which in fact with me never flowers in the autumn, but intermittently during the Winter - it is often called the Winter Flowering Cherry -  but with a final burst in early Spring. There is a white and pink version, both to my mind equally good. And apart from the flowers it also makes an attractive tree, with often good autumn colour. There is a view that, apart from the ubiquitous Prunus cerasifera Pissardi with its masses of pink flowers in early Spring followed by purple leaves, Flowering cherries  do not do here, but all I can say is that my 'Winter Flowering Cherry' have always flourished. As for P.Pissardi it cannot be denied that when in full flower it is very attractive, but the purple leaf, which one might think would be a plus, turns out to be rather dull and heavy which prevents it ever being in my top five. I have tried more than once P. Tai Haku, the Great White Cherry, but it has never looked especially happy. More successful has been P.Shirofugen, with pink buds and opening to fully double white flowers, and in fact I would strongly recommend it, even if it cannot quite make the top five.

Quite different is the Winter flowering honeysuckle. There is nothing particularly attractive about its shape or leaf colouring: it is just a bush. But when in flower its scent makes it a must: no need to put your nose to it; its fragrance will seek you out. There are essentially two versions: Lonicera fragrantissima and L. x purpusii. I think that I have always grown the former, but then I am not sure that I can tell the difference, but one or the other has to be included

One of the great glories of an English Spring are the bulbs, starting with snowdrops, and going on through crocus, daffodils and narcissus, tulips and on to blue bells.  I have found all these bulbs difficult. Some seven years ago I planted over three hundred snowdrops. This year I couild not find one ! My daffodils at least do not die, but they do not increase, or if they do only very slowly. I do not recommend the so-called English bluebell - Scilla nutans - though having seen thousands in Cornwall I have to admit that they are probably more attractive than the Spanish - S.campanulata. But they do not like our heat, and if what you are wanting is a blue carpet the Spanish will do very well. The best bet , though more a corm than a bulb, is Cyclamen coum. These come will all sorts of leaf patterns , including a very smart silver- leafed one, and a colour range of a very deep purle through to white. They seem to like our climate, no animal seems to like eating them, and they multiple quite quickly. So I am going to put them in my top Five.

Much of our Spring colour is provided by the many fruiting trees, starting with almonds, peaches and pears and ending with the apples. All these are beautiful in flower, and I guess that I grow them more for their flowers than their fruits, since what with the birds, the diseases and and the many insects I never seem to end up with a very good crop. The pink of a peach is wonderful, but for sheer flower power a cherry is very hard to beat, which of course raises the question mentioned above of why one sees so few of the decorative cherries. In the wild are the buckthorns - Rhamnus cathartica - and the hawthorns - Crataegus monogyna. The latter is a very large family and I suspect very underused here, people perhaps being put off by their thorns, or perhaps even more likely because very few varieties are readily available. For me the most attractive all the year round crataegus is the so-called Washington Thorn - C.phaenopyrum, but it is its autumn tints rather than its Spring flowers that makes it a winner. But for a 'Gosh factor' in Spring C.Paul's Scarlet is very hard to beat and for that reason I am going to put it in my top Five - and moreover various nurseries, including Ets Spahl, and garden centres supply it.

I would love to have included a magnolia, one of my favourite trees, and of course to be seen at their absolute best in the Cornish gardens that I have just visited. When I first came to SW France I was rather optimistic about growing them here, and in a garden close to the Pyrenees they did indeed grow with some success, including some of the newish varieties such as M. Manchu Fan and M.peppermint stick. But on moving away from the mountains I have become less optimistic. We do grow some including one of my absolute favourites, M.Star Wars with its deep pink flowers of some size, but I cannot say that they are very happy. I guess that the M. soulangeana varieties, of which there are many, are the ones to go for here, despite the fact that in some people's eyes they have been rather overtaken by the rush of new hybrids  developed in the second half of the last century especially in California and New Zealand. They seem to put up with our clay soil and hot summers better than most, but until I have greater success with them  I cannot put them in my top Five.

So lastly the early buddleyas. B.officinalis is fine enough, and is certainly very floriferous but the flowers are of a rather too pale lilac for my liking and the growth is very upright which makes it a rather gawky bush or small tree. Much more attractive is a near relation, B.officinalis Vicomte de Noailles.There is something of a mystery about this plant. I acquired mine from the great buddleya specialists at le Jardin de Rochevieille, but on searching the net I failed to find any reference to it - a rosemary named after the Vicomte, and also a camellia sasanqua, but no buddleja. I also failed to find it in my admittedly out of date 'Plant Finder', but neither in the very recent new edition of Hillier's 'Trees and Shrubs', so I am just beginning to wonder whether it really exists. Mine certainly does. It flowers at about the same time as my B.officinalis, which is early Spring, but the flowers are of a much deeper lilac/purple, and rather than being stiff as is the case with most buddleyas they droop in what I think is a most attractive way. So much in love am I with this shrub that not only do I include it in my top five for a Spring garden, but I would put it in my top five, all seasons included.

P.S. Since writing this I have been in touch with Le jardin de Rochevielle and they tell me that they are probably the only nursery to produce B.off. Vicomte de Noailles which they found in the famous garden of that name. They are present at the Gaujacq Fairs and I can only strongly recommend  a purchase of this wonderful shrub.

Small is Beautiful

When writing in my previous blog about my love affair with the oak I had not really space to say anything about the actual planting of them. Moreover as readers of these blogs will appreciate I am very reluctant to write anything very much about gardening technics. I have never had any formal garden training and have never become remotely an expert in such matters. What I now have is rather too many years of actual gardening behind me, and inevitably one learns a little from ones successes and failures. I also sometimes think that I am quite a lazy gardener, but especially when it comes to planting trees and shrubs. My holes are never very large, neither are they filled with wonderful compost, but then the subjects that I am planting are practically never very large, which brings me to the title of this blog.

I have often wondered whether if I was very rich my approach to gardening would be very different. Presumably I would have many gardeners at my disposal so my laziness would not be an issue. Moreover I could actually afford to buy very large, even mature trees and an instant garden might become a reality. And of course the obvious advantage of planting large is that you can  get an immediate effect, and thus avoid the criticism of one visitor to a garden I was involved in when she remarked "Ah, I see that you are still in the pygmy stage".  But whether rich or poor there are serious disadvantages in planting big. The staking has got to be much more important, and if, as I often do, one plants trees that are not even 50cms one can avoid staking altogether. Secondly, but perhaps even more importantly a large tree will require significantly more amounts of water over a longer period. Again, if wealthy, these problems can be overcome, though serious staking is never very attractive. A problem that money cannot solve is that your choice of tree is more limited. The larger the tree the bigger the investment required, but also significantly more space, and thus a nursery needs to be confident that it will find a buyer. Here in S-W France we have been lucky in having Jacques Urban's Florama providing a very large choice of very young trees, though the sad news is that he seems to be cutting down on his stock quite considerably.


Much easier to find are trees of say 1.50 to 2 meters high, and I guess that their purchase is the best compromise. That said a 2 meter tree is still significantly more expensive than one of 30cms. It probably will need staking and it will need more watering in its early years. In a previous garden we experimented with the planting of two oaks, one 30cms and the other 2 meters. In four years the smaller tree had outgrown its rival, though after that period the growth rate remains the same, the point of course being that the bigger the newly planted tree the longer it takes to establish itself, while the smaller tree quickly grows away. So if you can wait three or four years plant small and save yourselves money and worry.

Meanwhile at what is increasingly becoming my favourite tree and shrub nursery run by Hélène and Franz Spahl in the Gers near Jegun  a viburnum that was new to me caught my eye. Its name is Viburnum Le Bois Marquis. Hilliers calls it persistent, though I guess semi-persistant might be more accurate, but at any rate what seduced me was its vibrant autumn colour of a reddish hue, and this, because it does not lose its leaves easily, over a long period. Moreover I am promised fragrant white flowers and bright red fruits so what more could one ask for ! Less dramatic but attractive enough is a certainly persistent viburnum. V.propinquum is similar to the much more common V.tinus, but smarter in that its leaves are glossy, shown to advantage by their bright red stems.  Its flower power is probably less than V.tinus and anyway appears much later in the year which is not an advantage - the great attraction of the V.tinus it that it is almost winter flowering, and thus has very little to compete with. Still all three viburnums are worth having, but Le Bois Marquis is a real winner.

Mighty Oaks from Little Acorns grow

I have been planting oaks. You might think that this is rather a waste of time. For one thing we are not short of oaks in our part of Gascony - our garden has at least half a dozen magnificent specimens already. Moreover I must now qualify as an elderly gent, perhaps not even a gent, and so I am not going to see the oaks I am planting, most of them not more than two or three years old, in anything remotely approaching their prime. What has prompted me to do so has been the generosity of Nora Vogel who has presented me with a number of young trees, these from her marvellous collection of oaks that she is building up in the west of the Gers. But there is also a part of me, as I suspect among quite a few gardeners, that contains a collecting addiction, and oaks provide a great opportunity to indulge this trait. The new Hilliers lists around about two hundred different oaks, and I suspect that this number could be greatly increased.  And while many look very much alike, a great many do not, differing as regards size - not all oaks are huge, for instance Quercus georgiana, described by Hilliers as a 'small spreading tree or large shrub' - the shape of their leaves varys enormously, most I guess are deciduous but by no means all, etc, etc.


Someone I used to garden with in England was very keen on the adage "Lets reinforce success", which is to say if something is happy lets have more of it. It is not a bad slogan, though it does not speak to my collecting instinct. Moreover it can be dangerous. The fact that certain oaks flourish in Gascony, I guess mainly Q.pubescens, its English common name the Downy Oak, and perhaps also the Sessile Oak, Q.petraea,though anybody with other ideas about this please get in touch since I am not at all confident about these attributions, does not mean that all do. For instance one of the reasons that I like oaks is that many of them have good autumn colour, as readers of these blogs will know one of my great obsessions. Most of these come from North America. Many of them prefer wetter conditions than we at least can provide on our South facing Gersois hillside, and some of them need acid soil, which we certainly cannot provide. For instance the oak that has perhaps the most dramatic autumn colouring, Q.coccinea especially in its form 'Splendens' does not seem to tolerate even a touch of lime, and certainly demands rather damper and deeper soil than we can provide, all of which has put me off trying it. On the other hand rather perversely I have planted Q.Bicolor, common name the Swamp White Oak, which as its name suggests prefers much wetter conditions than I can provide, tempted to do so by promise of good autumn colour, and its liking of hot summers which we can provide. Of course the safer bet for an oak with good autumn colour is Q.rubra which also happens to be very readily available. This for me is not necessarily a recommendation. What is is a marvellous specimen to be seen at Les Jardins de Coursiana at La Romieu, this along with a very wide choice of other oaks, so before choosing oaks I strongly recommend a visit.



From the above it will be clear that a good deal of irrationality and prejudice comes into my choice of oaks. But if this blog has any purpose it is to remind you of their huge variety. For instance you could have a Bamboo-leaf oak(Q.myrsinfolia), a Chestnut-leafed oak(Q.castenifolia), or a Willow Oak(Q.phellos), or if you prefer countries what about an Armenian oak(Q.pontica) or perhaps a Lebanon Oak(Q.Libani). And so far I have hardly mentioned the evergreen oaks, the most common being the Holm oak(Q.ilex), but there are many others. Secondly despite the above I would recommend looking at the literature before choosing. Hilliers curiously is hopeless as regards giving advice. My two bibles are 'Arbres et Arbustes' by Myriam and Vincent Grellier, who run Les pépinières Botanique de La Preille, and my 2008-10 catalogue of les pépinière Adeline - I emphasize the date since it has recently changed hands and I have no idea whether the very high standards of the previous owners, has been maintained. This catalogue is just the best list of trees with good information about the conditions they prefer, that I have ever come across. The La Preille book, in fact another detailed catalogue, contains rather fewer trees but has the great merit of being geared to our conditions, and is really an essential reference for Gascon gardeners. My third choice would be  the Encyclopédie des Arbres text by John White and drawings by David More, though there is certainly an English edition, its great merit being that it gives you some idea of the eventual look of the tree along with the shape of the leaves and texture and colour of the bark - so particularly useful for identification.


So do look at the literature, even if like myself you then ignore the advice, for thanks to the great varity of conditions even within a smallish garden you might just get away with it. My most successful oak, and one that I have mentioned before in these blogs, is Q.shumardii. La Preille's advice is that 'il préfère des sols acides ou neutres;éviter les argiles fortes . . .' Well we have plenty of clay and we are certainly not acid, but so far my "Chene du Shumard" seems reasonably happy.



Meanwhile it is very much cotoneaster and mahonia time, all of which are looking splendid at this moment. Mahonias I have probably said quite enough about in previous blogs, but perhaps not quite enough about the humble Cotoneaster lacteus: common as dirt and for much of the year easy to overlook but come November/December with its dark glossy green leaves and scarlet berries it is a complete winner.

My Plant of the year

I have just acquired Mahonia eurybracteata subsp. ganpinensis 'Soft Caress' winner of the Chelsea Flower Show plant of the year 2013, so it is really too early for me to express any strong views about it. Readers of these blogs will know that I am fan of the Mahonia family, but since the spiny leaves are, unless you are weeding around them, one of the attractive features, the removal of the spines is not necessarily an advantage. This years winner was a mophead hydrangea called 'Miss Saori', but looking at the photos it is not a plant I would want, but since I cannot really grow these hydrangeas that is not a problem.  On the other hand the year that the mahonia won was also the centenary year of the RHS, and there was a competition for the plant of the Centenary. This was won by Geranium Rozanne, and if you have not already got it I strongly recommend you to go out and get, preferably at my favourite nurseryman's garden (www.unjardindevivaces.fr), though it is widely available.  It is a good blue, it starts flowering a little late in the year, but once it does it does not stop. It makes a good clump but does not travel or self seed, this unlike G.x oxonianum  Claridge Druce which can rapidly take over a garden if given half a chance. All in all almost the perfect plant.
 

I am not sure that my plant of the year is quite that. For one thing I have only had it a year. Moreover I am not aware that I ever chose to buy it, since it just appeared, perhaps arriving with another plant. And if I describe it as yet another little white daisy I am not sure that you would want to go out and buy it. But if you think Aster Monte Cassino, but one that flowers from very early summer to very late autumn this might change your mind. Or if you have already got Erigeron karvinskianus, a small white/pink daisy which will grow almost anywhere, and the drier the better, but instead of being a few centimeters high it can get to over a meter, this will give you some idea of what it is about. In fact erigeron is the clue since I am pretty certain is must be Erigeron annuus, common American name, Daisy Fleabane.  This, as the Latin name suggests, makes it an annual, or just occasionally a biannual which is perhaps a disadvantage, though it clearly selfseeds as mine has already begun to do. It seems to me that it could be used almost anywhere in the garden rather in the same way as verbena bonariensis. The latter used to be championed by none other than Christopher Lloyd, one its virtues being that because it is not a dense plant it can be planted front of border without blocking the view. And it was looking at pictures of Great Dixter, now in the obviously very capable hands of  Fergus Garrett that enabled me to identify the plant. Perhaps I should just add that despite having just popped up in my garden it seems to be quite difficult to get hold with not even Chiltern Seeds providing it.


Meanwhile autumn is in full fig with all the usual suspects - acer campestre, cornus sanguinea, and viburnum lanata to mention the most common - doing their thing. Pistacia chinensis is just beginning to turn, and yet again I would like to recommend this tree for a Gascony garden. But what I have noticed for almost the first time is Carpinus coreana. At the moment for me it is just a little bush, though one with a certain elegance as it seems to have a semi-weeping habit. But it is has just begun to turn colour - a mixture of greeny, yellowy, reds, and I have to say that it has suddenly become very eye-catching.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

In Praise of Phygelius

It has taken me over thirty years to come round to this family of subshrubs, but about a month ago I had what might be called an 'eureka moment'. There is an area in our garden which I have always found difficult. It is on the South-West corner of the house where the land falls away quite steeply, so that in order to descend from a southern terrace steps have been created. It is a difficult area to plant, partly because of the slope and partly because it gets too much afternoon sun and thus quickly becomes very dry. Anyway about six weeks ago  on passing this area I was stopped short by the sudden realisation that what I was looking at was really rather successful, something I should stress that happens rather too infrequently. On one side of the steps are two shrubs that have at last come into their own. One is a Clerodendrum trichotomum. These are not uncommon in our part of the world - a large shrub with quite impressive darkish green leaves, lots of fragrant white flower in late summer followed by bright blue berries. If you have not got it I recommend it, but with one caveat: like other members of its family its roots run all over the place, so that you can quite quickly have a forest of them. The other shrub, also with fragrant white flowers but without any inclination to run about is Heptacodium miconiodes. I guess that it less well-known than the clerodendrum but for me it is a must for gardens in Gascony, for along with the scented flowers, with  red calyxs that rest on the plant after the petals have fallen, it develops with age attractive peeling bark.  On the other side are a number of different shrubs including various viburnums and a Sambucus nigra Thundercloud, but also and most importantly the aforesaid phygelius. In fact I have two varieties in this area. The most prominent is what I call the bog standard one and which I first came across in England so many years ago, that is P.capensis. There are many reasons why it was not love at first sight.  Like all of the family, it is slightly tender, so that in a cold Kentish garden there was a danger that it might be lost. More importantly there is the colour of its flowers, which to my eye is coral with a hint of orange, and not really my favourite. It can also become rather untidy so that after a mild winter it  becomes rather tall and lanky; in a cold winter the growth will be cut back, though I doubt whether in Gascony the plant will ever be lost. But despite all this my present plant, which has developed over quite a large area is really rather eye catching, helped perhaps by the slope and the surrounding shrubs which have helped to keep the growths upright, and I am completely one over.






Since I first came across the family there has been quite a lot of hybridisation, particularly between P.capensis and P. aequalis. My second phygelius is in fact yellow, and probably P. aequalis Yellow Trumpet, though I have lost the label. It seems to be slightly more tender than P.capensis - two winters ago I thought that I had lost it but it has since made a good recovery - and this may be true of most of the new varieties. It also does not grow so tall which may be an advantage. Elsewhere I have got P.Devils Tears, P.Mme Aerts which I cannot find in either Hilliers or in my admittedly rather out of date RHS Plant Finder (2003-4), but it has significantly darker leaves, and most recently one whose name again I have lost - 'ruby' was part of the name - which I particularly like since its colour is a genuine deep red. The new 'Hilliers' lists quite a few others, amongst them the Somerford Funfair series, which includes a creamy white, a colour I think new to the family. They all look promising, and as a recent convert I am keen to spread the word.




Meanwhile do not forget those yellow autumn crocus, not in fact crocus, though they great resemble them, but Sternbergias, usually S.lutea.They can be planted more or less anywhere, though to see them at their best preferably alongside a path or Woodland edge. One minute there is nothing, another there is a yellow ribbon or carpet. And the great joy is that you have to do absolutely nothing in the way of looking after them. As with the colchicums some people find their quite prominent leaves that appear after flowering a slight worry, but I actually find them rather handsome, and certainly worth the pleasure to be derived from the flowers.

Le Jardin d'Entêoulet

I have got into the bad habit of saying that there is only one garden worth visiting in the Gers, not I should hasten to add our own, but La Coursiana at La Romieu. I must now add a second, Le Jardin d'Entêoulet at Lasseube-Propre just south of Auch. I feel guilty that it has taken me so long to visit this garden It is featured in the 'Jardins Secrets de Gascogne which was published in 2007, and having read about it in this book I had every intention of visiting it, but for some reason only got around to doing  so very recently. It probably was not at its best since many of the large number of roses, many of them climbing through trees, were over. It also possesses an avenue of quinces, the first I have ever come across, but sadly it was neither in flower or laden with quinces. It shares something in common with La Coursiana that it is essentially the work of a woman, in this case, Renée Boy Faget, perhaps even more so since at La Coursiana Veronique Delannoy was able to build on the work of the previous owner Gilbert Cours-Darne who back in the Seventies had started what is now a magnificent arboretum. She may also have a little bit more help, perhaps even some provided by her very large number of offspring.  But what both ladies have is an enormous amount of energy and flair.

The gardens are very different. La Coursiana has the advantage, already mentioned of a very fine collection of trees. Its soil I believe has some acidity, rare in the Gers, which widens the selection of plants. Moreover Veronique Delannoy has a wonderful flair for colour expressed in her often dramatic use of annuals along with large numbers of dahlias, hollyhocks and salvias.  So it has more of a 'Gosh' factor about it and for a plantsman , or indeed woman, it has a little bit more interest.  If you wished to be critical you could say that La Coursiana is a bit flashy, or even bling bling. Le Jardin d'Entêoulet on the other hand is almost 'normal', that is if Monsieur Hollande had not given the word 'normal' such a bad connotation.  Along with the many roses already mentioned it is full of euhorbias, nepetas, phlomis,stachys and a very large collection of different grasses, to mention the more obvious. None of these plants are rare or difficult but they look contented, with the result that the garden looks contented. It also fits in very beautifully with its landscape, a landscape very typical of the Gers with arable and woodland rolled into an attractive mix, and like La Coursiana it has a view of the adjoining village and its collection of medieval looking buildings. It contains different garden rooms including a 'Jardin Intime' and a Jardin Cote Sud' and also a mare and thus a water garden. In one visit it is not possible to do justice to it, and in stressing its normalcy in one sense I am being unfair because if you started looking I am sure that you will find a large number of unusual plants. But what remains in my mind after a first visit is an image of a perfect Gersois garden, something that we who live in the Gers can look up to as something to strive towards, though I doubt that we will ever get there.

Just two postscripts. One is that I have been meaning for ages to recommend Hypericum kalmianum Gemo. I cannot be doing with many of this large family, and for me Hypericum calycinum, otherwise known as the Rose of Sharon, is a pernicious weed, while I have gone off H. Hidcote, a large bush with very in your face single yellow flowers.  'Gemo' on the other hand makes a much smaller evergreen bush covered at this time of year with delicate yellow flowers that look almost double because of its very prominent stamens. It has no bad side effects, such as spreading all over your garden. Indeed it is almost the perfect shrub able to hold its own in any company.

My second P.S. is that I have probably found yet another important Gersois garden. Many years ago I was put off from visiting Les Jardins de La Poterie Hillen by someone who said that they did not like the pottery, but on a recent visit to my my favourite garden nursery, that of Bernard Lacrouts, I was told by the redoubtable Ann that I must visit it, so that is what I am going to do, and will report back.