A garden was the beginning of it all

A garden is a perishable creation that rarely outlives its creator. It is a lesson in humility.

Created in the spring of 2000 on a fallow field, a garden in Anjou...

A garden is a perishable creation, one that rarely outlives its creator. It is a true school of humility.

It was in the spring of 2000, after acquiring a former priory in Anjou, that we designed a French formal garden on a piece of wasteland, in the shade of the manor. The site then took its name from the chapel of Saint-Alman.

Our ambition was to restore harmony to a 15th-century priory, later expanded in the late 18th century.

The result was meant to resemble the kind of garden that might have been laid out four or five centuries earlier.

A skilful marriage between flowers and vegetables, in the spirit of a time when usefulness was elegant and beauty was practical.

Roses take pride of place: dwarf, climbing, and standard varieties. Modern remontant roses were chosen to ensure blooms from May until the first frosts.

Annual flowers abound as well, providing early and even winter blossoms such as pansies, tulips, zinnias, and more.

As for the vegetables, there are no potatoes, too anachronistic, but rather a variety of species carefully combined for their color and shape, neatly arranged within boxwood-edged beds.

Covering an area of 1,200 square meters, the garden is enclosed by a stone wall on three sides and bordered to the north by the manor house, divided into six sections separated by gravel paths.

Mixed border of roses and heritage vegetables at Saint-Alman
Layout of the Saint-Alman garden showing rose beds by the house and vegetable plots at the rear

The three squares along the south-facing façade of the house form green carpets bordered with beds of polyantha and standard roses.

The three squares at the back, on the north side, are devoted to vegetables and fruit trees.

The intersection of the paths is marked by a pond on the main axis, and by a garden of Simples along the secondary path. Simples, or medicinal and aromatic plants, held a place of honor in medieval gardens.

The garden of Simples features a circular bed divided into four sections, surrounded by four quarter-circle beds, all edged with neatly trimmed boxwood.

You’ll find thyme, peppermint and lemon balm, rosemary, marjoram, savory, lavender, hyssop, sage, and chives, along with annuals such as dill and basil.

The orchard of the Vieille Cure de Quincé garden is planted with apple and pear trees trained in the verrier style.

Finally, the east and south sides are bordered by a grass path lined with a pruned hornbeam hedge, opening onto the gravel paths through three living archways.

This garden is private property and not open to the public.

It all starts with a garden…

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