French Garden Dreams Inspired by Japanese Garden Reality

“Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a bit of earth?”

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

For years I dreamt of a "bit of earth" and when we moved to Versailles my fantasy was realized, first in the garden of our rental apartment and later when we bought our house.  A decent-sized lot was a requirement (I could care less about the size of the house) as was a layout with possibilities:  small and large spaces, shade and light, trees and shrubs;  and room for fruits and vegetables.  

That was a lot to ask for but the property we purchased has all that if I plan and plant it right.  My time in Japan has both inspired and instructed me.  The gardens here are amazing and they provide clever solutions that apply to my garden at home:  How do I get the maximum effect out of the space I have?

In the front of my is house a small rectangular courtyard which gets sun in the morning and shade in the afternoon.  It was separated from the street by a horrible chain link fence covered in blue plastic and a very nice maroon metal gate. Here is what it looked like back in 2012 after I got rid of the weeds.

The blue plastic went to the dump.  We had the chain link fence painted maroon to match the gate and I also painted the concrete brick walls.  After amending the soil I started to plant a few things every year.  Here is what has been accomplished so far.

Better but still a work in progress.  The house is very close to a busy street and the noise and pollution are a big problem.  M. (our house sitter) planted a row of shrubs along the chain link fence which (interestingly enough) is a plant that comes from Japan: Aucuba japonica.  We chose this shrub because it's an evergreen with lovely foliage and because there is already a row of them growing insanely fast in the backyard and they are lush and green with no hint of disease. The next phase is to plant more small trees like Japanese maples (there is already one on the other side of the courtyard and I'm waiting to see if it does well) and/or alders and/or witch hazel and a few box shrubs (or perhaps azaleas) so that there will be a mixture of tall and short things that provide a beautiful multi-layered screen against the dust and noise. Another idea I have is to pull up some of the flagstones and put a small tree in the middle of the north side for yet another beautiful barrier against the street.  

It was in Japan that I really got a feel for how to place and prune trees for a small space. The rule I have lived by ever since I read Cass Turnball's works  is never plant anything that you can't allow to grow to its full height and width.  Well, the Japanese don't do it that way and their way works and looks fantastic.  I have walked gardens in Himeji, Hiroshima, Shodoshima, Kyoto, Tokyo, Wakayama, Sapporo, and Osaka and have taken countless pictures of how they pruned in particular spaces and what trees were used to create certain effects.  Two books I have read and would recommend to you are The Art of Creative Pruning: Inventive Ideas for Training and Shaping Trees and Shrubs and  Niwaki: Pruning, Training and Shaping Trees the Japanese Way.  Both are by Jake Hobson.

Turning to the backyard garden this is what it looked like when we moved into the Versailles house.

Messy but filled with potential.  A garden with great "bones".  Note on the right side of the photo the diseased shrubs.  In the back right corner what looks like a shrub was actually growth coming out of a tree stump.  But along the back stone wall there were roses and muguet which said to me that this garden was wonderful once.  The first step was one of subtraction - everything that was dead and dying had to go and it took months.  Only then could I amend the soil and start adding.  Slowly.  A few things a year.

Here is what it looks like now.

See what I mean by good "bones?"  So what's the plan here?  See that big bush on left side just after the bamboo?  That one is a conundrum.  There are many lovely varieties of weigelia but this isn't one of them.  This one has spindly boring flowers and has to be cut back fiercely at least once a year. So much work for so little reward.   I want to move it (perhaps to the front courtyard if there is enough light) and place a small pond in its place.  Something that looks like a smaller version of this:

In other words I want to dip my toes into water gardening.  When we were in Brittany we brought back some beautiful granite stones and a small auge which I will use instead of a waterfall.  The effect would be something like this:

So much to do and it's all doable with sweat and blood (I cut myself often).  And affordable if I just spend enough hours on Le Bon Coin. 

But I am so grateful to have spent time in Japan and to have had my old ideas about gardening challenged.  And to be abundantly clear, I don't want a Japanese garden.  What I want is a garden with the best and most locally appropriate ideas from the three countries I've called home:  the United States, France, and Japan.   I want it to be the best "bit of earth" it can be - a transnational garden from an old transnational gardener.

And just for fun (since it's Friday)  here is a short clip about my favorite garden in Japan:  Kokoen Garden in Himeji.  If you have only one thing to see in that city, skip the castle and go to see this garden divided up into nine spaces that are so beautiful that each and every one will make your heart sing.

The Flophouse Garden

Taking a few weeks off to play in the garden.  A little pruning; a lot of weeding.  The biggest project was dethatching the lawn, removing the moss and putting down some fertilizer.  Here are a few pictures.  Hope you are having as pleasant a month of May as I am.

Operation Chicken Run

"Nick: Here's a thought. Why don't we get an egg and start our own chicken farm? That way we'd have all the eggs we could eat.

Fetcher: Right. We'll need a chicken, then.
Nick: No... no, we'll need an egg. You have the egg first, that's where you get the chicken from.
Fetcher: No, that's cobblers. If you don't have a chicken, where are you going to get the egg?
Nick: From the chicken that comes from the egg.
Fetcher: Yeah, but you have to have an egg to have a chicken.
Nick: Yeah, but you've got to get the chicken first to get the egg, and then you get the egg... to get the chicken out of...
Fetcher: Hang on. Let's go over this again?"

Chicken Run (2000)

This morning my spouse and I headed over to Les Fermes de Gally near St. Cyr L'Ecole. We'd been meaning to visit for a long time but had no real excuse until today. For those of you from Seattle, Les Fermes de Gally are Swansons on Steroids. It's an old farm that's been turned into a combination nursery, garden store, and petting zoo complete with a corn field labyrinth and a U-Pick (fruits and vegetables).  Like Swanson's however, it is a bit pricey and we usually shop for basic gardening items at Truffaut's instead.

But this morning we had a mission that, alas, Truffaut could not help us with:

Operation Flophouse Chicken Run 

You see, we have this friend who lives in an area much like ours and a few months ago he bought chickens and has been raving ever since about fresh eggs and stewed chicken and, my oh my, did that sound appealing. (Isn't it sad how easily we are influenced? Such is the insanity of a new homeowner.)

So we started looking into it. Yes, apparently you can have chickens in the city here as long as you don't have too many of them - 3 or 4 chickens are considered to be "animaux domestiques" like cats or dogs).

Sweet serendipity was with us because, par hasard, today Les Ferme de Gally had a very large section of their store devoted to just that. They had everything we were looking for and some things we had never ever imagined.

Chickens in every shape, color and size

They had a huge selection of chickens in every shape, color and size.  There was a helpful guide with ratings that gave us an idea of how well each race performed in three categories:  as layers, as stew and as breeders.  (Though it did make me feel a bit as through I was buying a vacuum cleaner).

Chicken run - not the Hilton but not too bad.

It was when we got to the chicken runs that our mouths dropped open.  Every conceivable shape, size, color and, configuration.  Some of them very very simple.  Others were so classy I'd almost feel bad about using them for something so mundane as chickens.  The latter were pretty expensive too - around 800 Euros.  Too much.

The prices were enough to bring us to our senses and we escaped the store with nothing more than a couple of jars of jelly and some bags for the Clean Green (made in the PRC by the way - go figure).

On the way home the conversation vacillated between two extremes:  

"Chickens are stupid, filthy animals and this business will cost us money and add greatly to our household chores.  This is a bad idea."   

"Fresh eggs.  Chicken stew.  Baked chicken with thyme.  Fertilizer for the garden. This is a great idea."

When we finally got home I made a pot of coffee and we took our cups outside to walk the garden together.  

And right before our eyes was the perfect place for a chicken run:  a long shady area (the very place, in fact, where mom took out the juniper) in the back of the garden right next to the compost pile.

Not only would a small chicken run fit there, it would look just right.  Almost as if the space was made for just that very thing.

We have other projects we want to get done so we reluctantly left the garden to take up today's other tasks.  "We'll sleep on it and think about it again in the morning," we said.

Who in the heck are we kidding?   Reason has fled.  Sanity?  Well we lost that when we bought the house.  It's all about how the idea makes us feel (good).  We've simply fallen in love with the notion of raising chickens of our very own.  An activity which we are told is:  "écolo et de plus en plus cool."

We are fools.  

The Flophouse and the Roseraie

Contempt before investigation will sink you every time.

Yesterday we invited the neighbors over for an early evening before dinner drink (what we call at the Flophouse the Coca-Kir hour).  Great people, good conversation, nice wine (cola for me) and my mother's diabolically good deviled eggs.

At some point in the soiree the neighbors asked about our future projects.  And that was how the conversation turned to the difficulties we are having getting permission to change the front gate. Our neighbors have been living in this part of town for nearly 40 years so they were the right people to ask.

They wanted to see what we had in mind for the gate and the fence and so I pulled out the thick file we got back from the Mayor's office to show them the picture and the letter.  Our neighbors liked what we had in mind - we had selected something very conservative and very "Versailles" - and they heartily approved with one minor change.

The letter my neighbor read out loud and it was then that I heard a sentence that I had surely read before but hadn't really understood:

Cette maison fait partie de l'ancienne pépinière de la Roseraie et constitue à ce titre une partie des pavillons qui bordaient cette rue.
(This house is part of the old Roseraie nursery and as such is a part of the houses along that street.)

So it's not just about being close to the castle or the Pavillon de Musique or the Octrois.  This house - our little 1929 not-in-such-great-shape brick house - is something they think is worth protecting and preserving.   It is a part of Versailles history in some way that I was not aware of.

As soon as the neighbors left I went looking for answers.  I hauled out all my books about Versailles and with elements I gleaned from them I did a web search and read late into the night.  Here's what I found out.

Once upon a time there was a family called Truffaut. They were horticulturalists and created a company in 1897 called Les Etablissements G. Truffaut in Versailles.  The company grew and in 1906 they moved their offices, factories and laboratories to Porchefontaine.  This little out of the way neighborhood in Versailles wasn't always the sleepy little community we know today - it was a place bustling with activity and commerce and Truffaut's was a large part of it.  Here is a description of their facilities on the Avenue de Paris in the early part of the 20th century:

On y trouve les bureaux de comptabilité, des services spéciaux de la revue JARDINAGE, les bureaux de commande des engrais, de la quincaillerie et de librairie pour la partie administrative et les laboratoires, les serres, les jardins d’expériences avec la Roseraie pour la partie technique.
(There were the accounting offices, the special services for their gardening magazine, the offices for ordering fertilizer, hardware and office supplies for the company administrative and research facilities, greenhouses and the show gardens along with the Rosaraie for the technical side.)

What was the Roseraie and why was it important enough to be mentioned in our letter from the architect des Batiments de France?

It was an immense garden in the style of Louis XVI with huge beds and thousands of different kinds of flowers.  Built by George Truffaut on a hectare of land between the train tracks and the avenue de Paris, it had greenhouses, nurseries, laboratories, a French garden complete with fountains and an English garden with pools for aquatic plants fed by a little creek called the ru de la Patte d'Oie.  At its height it was amazing and people came from all over France, from other parts of Europe and even from as far away as Australia to view it.  From the book Sept siecles de l'histoire du quartier de Porchefontaine:

Dans ces jardins, ouverts au public, les expositions des fleurs sont un veritable enchantement.  Lors du festival floral, certaines années, un million de bulbes de tulipes sont plantés.  Leur floraison en mai est une marveille, puis en juin des milliers de rosiers fleurissent a leur tour, offrant un spectacle inoubliable.
(In these gardens, open to the public, the flower exhibitions are a true delight. At the floral festival, in some years, a million tulip bulbs are planted. Their blooming in May is a marvel and in June thousands of roses bloom in their turn, offering an unforgettable spectacle.)

In 1929 when the owner/builder of our house looked over the back wall this is what he saw:

http://www.truffaut.com/histoire-truffaut/Pages/etablissements.aspx

And here is another view courtesy of Tim:

This map from 1954 shows the exact location of the gardens in Porchefontaine and where the creek used to run.  Our house is in the small square tucked into the corner of the avenue de Paris and the rue de Porchefontaine.

36 years later in 1965 the Truffaut's closed the gardens and sold the property.  The land was bought by a development company and they built very stylish apartment complex called La Roseraie.  The buildings were placed in such a way to keep a large garden in the center for the enjoyment of the inhabitants but nothing like what existed before.

The irony here is Truffaut still has 58 garden centers in France  with one in Chesnay near the Velizy shopping center.  That is where we usually go to buy plants, fertilizer and garden tools.  I even have a fidelity card.  That there was a connection between the Flophouse garden and Truffaut (past and present) was a very pleasant surprise. 

As I write this post I find that although I now understand the history much better, I still have many questions:  Who built this house and was there a direct connection between it and the Truffaut gardens?   Was it perhaps built for someone who worked for the Truffaut's?  There is another old house on our street that is bigger than ours but also has interesting distinctive architecture - were they built at the same time for the same reasons?  Where is the old creek that used to run between our house and the railroad tracks?  What did my house look like when it was built?  Could we find a picture of the original gate and grille?  And above all I would really like to know why the Truffaut's left Versailles and why someone didn't step in to save the gardens back in 1965.

I'll be looking into it further but I have learned an important lesson.  To my father's saying "government regulation sent you to college, Victoria," I would add:  Sometimes regulations that look stupid and bureaucratic are to prevent ignorant people like me from doing dumb things.  

Looks like I owe an apology to the architectes des bâtiments de France. 

As of this morning we are, as they say here, "en phase."

Flophouse House & Garden Fall Projects

"A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body."

Benjamin Franklin

Did I ever tell you the story about how we bought our little house in Versailles?  We'd been living in this city ever since we came back to France from Japan. At the time my spouse and I were working at the same company (Dassault) and since they had plans to move their headquarters from Suresnes (a city on the outskirts of Paris) to Vélizy it made sense to find an apartment close by.  So we did and we lived happily there for many years.

A few years, a couple of jobs, and a life-threatening illness later we were walking in the neighborhood near the Porchefontaine train station and saw that a little house that had been sold a few months prior was back on the market.  We'd been kicking around the idea of finally buying something after 25 years of renting and this one looked interesting.  It also looked affordable.  A little cottage in the "cheap seats" of Versailles that was so run down that the previous buyer (according to the real estate agent that sale fell through because he could not prove that his money from Russia was "clean") planned to tear it down.

We fell in love.  Yes, it was small (55 square meters/592 square feet), and run down (ancient peeling wallpaper, ugly carpet, cracks in the windows, cracks in the walls, water damage, not-at-all-to-code wiring and asbestos).  But looking past these things we could see pine floors, old chandeliers, crown molding and all sorts of other features that made us think that it could be charming and beautiful if someone gave it a little love.  And there was the garden, of course, which was twice the size of the house.  

We (one Frenchling, two adults and two cats - race "European" which means "mutt")  moved in December of 2012.  Today in the latter part of 2013 we are still in love with the house though our family pocketbook has been lightened considerably. And it is everything we had hoped for-not any bigger mind you, but it is cozy.  One of my friends from church calls it, "La maison de blanche neige et les 7 nains."

And we still have a long long list of projects (stuff that must be fixed and stuff we'd like to have fixed if we can afford it).  Now that we are back home after our extended vacation to the exotic world of the Pacific Northwest in North America we are once again working on the house.  Here is the progress we've made:

The Petit Godin:   Godin came by on Monday and installed the wood stove.  It is magnificent.  You can read here about our quest for the perfect French "poele" and here is a picture of ours in the living room.  We just have to wait until the sealant is completely dry before we can make a fire.

Basement/cellar:  Basement has a laundry area and two small rooms that we turned into a bedroom and a study.  Both have been useable since last year if you are short - anyone over 6 feet/1.8 meters is going to get hurt by the low ceiling and beams.  We couldn't make the rooms taller but we could make them pleasant.  Here is what the study looked like when we moved in:

And here's what it looks like after a week of stripping ancient moldy wallpaper (three layers), plastering and painting.

Last week the plumber came and moved one of the old radiators from the first floor to this room right under the window.  So not only does the Flophouse now have a guest room but it has heat.  Ok it's not exactly this but it's warm and bright and has a futon.  The laundry area is right next door so you can even fall asleep to the sound of our ancient dryer rumbling and tumbling in the night.  Just think of it, mes amis, as the "authentic Versailles experience."  And really, what more could any guest ask for in a free room....

Garden:  For those who were kind enough to ask, I am pleased to report that my spouse did not kill the garden.  On the contrary, it was a jungle out there when I got back - weeds like water too.  But there were still a few flowers and vegetables.  We are drowning in tomatoes.  Before leaving the premises all visitors must take a bag of homegrown tomatoes - our very own Flophouse octroi. We also have pumpkins. These I am keeping to make Jack-o'-lanterns, pie and soup.

My parents arrived earlier this week from Amsterdam - my father's annual pilgrimage to the International Broadcasting Convention.  Since "idle hands are the devil's work" we have shanghaied them into helping us cross a few projects off our list.  Right now Mom and I are concentrating on taking out the diseased juniper on the right hand side of the back garden.  

We are generating a mountain of "clean green" and wood for the new wood stove.  How cool is that?

As I have been writing for this blog my mother has been writing for her friends back in Seattle. I will leave you now (it's market day) with one of her notes and her report on our lovely little house (aka "money sink") and its projects.  She called it "Why Juniper Sucks."

"So here we are here in Victoria and JM's lovely new (old) house in Versailles, An excellent example of a well designed, comfortable and very functional small house. They did the smart thing and figured out how much work needed to be done BEFORE they moved in and they hired a really good contractor to do it. (On time and budget, a bit envious after my elegant but behind schedule and way over budget stair project.) As with far too many houses inhabited by old widow ladies it was a mess of bad repair decisions and horrendous amounts of deferred maintenance. And there is still (isn't there just always?) more to be done but the big messy stuff is behind them.

 The garden was truly horrible. It was possible to see the bones installed by a good gardener so Victoria has been careful to preserve much of it but sometimes removal is the only way to go, bringing us to the hideous use of juniper as hedge material so beloved by the suburban gardener. It really wants to be a tree so it's a bad choice for a average sized city garden and the damn stuff tends to turn up its little green toes - generally somewhere in the middle of a hedge row - leaving a nasty hole. It's susceptible to root rot, just one of the things that kill it - one of the MANY things actually. So out it goes. The most hideous mess was removed just after they moved in, we are now tackling the rest of it. Since stacking a lot of plant material in JM's really nice company car seems ill-advised we are taking the longer approach- putting out the maximum amount of "clean green" for each pickup. It goes slowly but the damn thing is coming out. We progress.

A really sucky thing, with all the best intentions, is the historic district designation. Nothing whatsoever can be done to the exterior without approval. So, as we move to refreshing the trim paint on this stone house we can't lift a sanding block without submitting a proposal (five copies) for the exact color and type and a visit from two city departments, any contractors involved, all on site at the same time - imagine trying to get that organized. Then you actually do the work and then arrange at least one inspection. If we all threw ourselves into it we could knock out most of the work in a long weekend but not this trip. It takes months as you might imagine. 

The quandary of the moment is the front gate- not lovely when new, it is considerable less so after the city's street work undermined one of the posts (before JM and Victoria's purchase) and no amount of tweaking is fixing the scraping that attends actually trying to open the damn thing- it is a mess of rust and it could be a better color but no, no, no- approval is required.  Ok, we all get why historic structures need to be protected but the gate was installed around 1960. Heads are being scratched about the political implications of pointing this out to the city's historic PC cops. Apparently they canvas the neighborhoods on scooters looking for criminals attempting to paint houses without permission. Paperwork has been submitted for the gate including detailed drawings (five copies) and we wait. Makes the vagaries and general whimsey of Seattle's zoning department seem like reading Dick and Jane. "

Flophouse Garden: Healing through Writing and Gardening

Monday morning the younger Frenchling and I will be on a flight to North America.  We have several destinations:  Seattle, WA;  Silverton, Oregon;  Vancouver, BC;  and Montreal, QC.

I'm a little nervous about the trip.  I will be very far from my caregivers, my family doctor and the staff at the René Huguenin cancer treatment center.  Yes, there are centers like this one in North America but, hey, I don't know them and they don't know me.  Just to be on the safe side I asked my local pharmacy in Versailles to give me a good supply of my cancer medication - don't think I want to try and purchase it over there, especially in the US.

I'm also very aware that I'm not quite 100%.  I still have trouble sleeping and I'm tired a lot of the time.  Sometimes the meds make me feel wretched and, ever since I stopped the chemo, I've had really bad joint pain.  I don't want to make too much of it (for a taste of what it's like for some see this post by Scorchy) but it's enough to make me wonder how this trip will go and if I'm really up to it.

Two things have brought me this far in my healing.  The first is writing.  I'm often asked where I find the energy to post (in three places now), read, and comment.  Well, it's something I truly enjoy.  In fact when I sit down and start typing I get into what has been called "flow".   The aches, pains and nausea disappear or greatly diminish.   Most importantly, I get out of my own head.  This means that I stop focusing on my problems and start taking an interest in other people and their/our issues.  It's a way out from the tyranny of self.

The other is gardening.  It's the perfect activity for healing because I can do a little at a time, there's no deadline to meet and nothing to stress over.  When I get tired, I just go inside and....write. :-)   Or lie on the couch and read really good bodice-rippers and paranormal romance novels.  

In gardening there is all the satisfaction of seeing something come alive and having it be appreciated by my neighbors.  "C'est magnifique!" said my Italian neighbor and that means a lot coming from him since he comes from a line of accomplished gardeners and knows personally the director of the gardens over at the Versailles castle.

And that leads me to my last worry:  What will happen to my garden when I'm abroad?  My spouse has promised to faithfully water every single day.  I believe him but will he notice that the young fig needs a little extra care? Or that he should cut the old blossoms of the roses?  Or put out a little slug bait to kill the escargots that are causing devastation to the hostas?  I know I need to let it go and trust that it will be alright.  Another lesson in surrender.  Another opportunity to live in the present and not in the wreckage of the future.

May you all have a good weekend and I'll leave you with the latest pictures of the Flophouse garden.

Front courtyard

Back perennial bed

View from the back porch

What's Up in the Flophouse Garden

OK, I promised (and my mom reminded me) that I would post pictures of the garden.  I originally wanted to wait for a sunny day before hauling out my camera but those are few and far between these day in Versailles.  Best to just accept and make the best of the light we have.

So here's what's up so far:

The green onions and lettuce are up and looking good.

The raspberries all have green leaves.  Very pretty.  The fence is hideous, however.

The perennial bed in the back is an explosion of color.  Here are peonies, tulips, daffodils and many other things all planted by the former owner.  I have cautiously added in iris, a day lily and some hostas.

I started planting some of the pots I rehabilitated.  This one found a home on a ring set into the wall on the front porch.

The forsythia is magnificent.  The lilac behind it is just getting started.  The white shrub in the front is not my thing at all.  I'm seriously thinking about committing shrub murder....

The great thing about having an overgrown and out of control forsythia is that I have plenty of branches that I can bring inside the house.  The vase is from my favorite garden store in Tokyo.  The picture on the wall is from India and was a gift from my staff in Pune.  The dresser comes from Seattle and was given to me by my mother.

And this is the view of the back garden from my dining room window.  I usually write on the table in this room and when I look up from my keyboard, this is what I see.