A Gardener in France

Just so you know, I am writing this after the event, not having had access to the internet while we were in France. The village does have broadband so that will be a must once we are a little more established. For the time being we make do with mobile phones.

On Sunday 10th July we had a day off and drove up to Chaumont-sur-Loire, around half an hour north. In the grounds of the chateaux and college of landscaping a festival of gardening is firmly established as an annual "must see" for those interested in cutting-edge garden design.

Now in its 14th year, themes tend to be on the weird side: in 2003 it was "Weeds", in 2004 "Long live Chaos!" and this year the designers had to apply themselves to the theme: "Gardens have Memories". Photos above will give you a flavour of how they got on: some interesting, some curious, some bizarre and one or two very succesful. As usual it was thought-provoking and provided further inspiration for my own work. If you take just one idea from a visit like this, it is worthwhile, and Chaumont never fails to confront traditional ideas about what constitutes a garden.

Pixie the Poodle got a little hot at times but fortunately several gardens featured water in various forms. In the end, she, Chantal and my parents began to get hot and bothered and after fantastic ice creams all round we returned to Chabris.

Further information on Chaumont and the festival at: www.chaumont-jardin.com

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