Lined by benches and surrounded by historic buildings and one of Quimper’s premier theatre venues, this formally landscaped garden in the French style provides a sheltered oasis in the old own, to sit on sunny afternoons or bring a picnic.
Mixed borders are edged with low trimmed boxwood, and more boxwood and evergreens in round shapes mix with roses, sedums and other plants.
I have written other posts on some of the beautiful and lush planters, borders or roundabouts to be found throughout France, as many small towns compete with one another for the most lavish and sometimes wildly creative floral displays. Here are some of the flowered boxes decorating the town of Daoulas in northwestern France, in particular the small bridges dotting the river.
On the outskirts of a small fishing village in Brittany, France, bordered by some woods, the original stone cottage was expanded over the years into a U-shape construction around a pleasant courtyard garden in the front, edged with rough stone walls.
This garden is very reminiscent of what the French used to call a “jardin ouvrier”. Literally meaning “workingman’s or bluecollar garden”, it refers to gardens that while having very much the look of cottage gardens served the very functional purpose of having to feed a family. Typically there will be a kitchen garden in the back or side of the house, with a flowered area in the front. I have featured other such gardens in my posts as they are often found in Brittany villages and around France.
The side of the house is dedicated to a vegetable patch towards the back with rows of tomatos, salads, cabbage, pumpkins, squashes, gourds and potatoes. Flowers are mixed in to help pollination. Towards the front are fruit trees and small vegetables.
The front of the house is planted with a riot of color from assorted annuals, perennials and dahlias, while potted floweres and container arrangements surround the front door and line the path.
Extra gourds and pumpkins go into a wheelbarrow by the gate.
The house in a small French village is sited towards the back of this narrow lot, away from the road, making it look like a woodland cottage nested in all that vegetation.
The plantings are mostly shrubs and perennials with a variety of foliage color and shape for year round interest,
A few trees, including a small pear tree in the front, add structure and make it look like an older, well established garden mixed border. Some of the plantings include fuchsias, pampas grasses, barberry, hydrangeas, roses, black eyed susan, and large patches of pink and white erigeron ground cover.
This lovely garden is terraced on a small hill in a picturesque coastal village in norther Brittany, France, with lovely stone retaining walls and steps leading from the house up to the higher levels. It is landscaped with many of the shrubs and perennials that are seen in many other Brittany gardens and are very well suited to the climate: hebe, hydrangeas, roses, wisteria, alyssum, viburnum …
The front display at this garden gate is not for every one, but it certainly stands out. Gardening clay pots are arranged into “sculpture” of story book characters such as Little Red Riding Hood or the French Becassine. The garden itself, while fairly small, has a nice variety of fruit trees underplanted with flowers and perennials, lavender or roses, and in some areas, bordered by small hedges for traditional French style borders.
French towns and villages often try to outdo one another with their floral displays and borders throughout. One area where they particularly excel is the roundabouts.
Roundabouts are the French version of the intersection, and particularly where the road enter the town, will plant a lavish mini garden in the middle of the roundabout. I wrote about one already that was done as a Japanese rock garden. At each end of the small town of Crozon is a roundabout: the first one is more tropical, the second is paired with a mixed border along the median for a lavish floral display.
Tropical Roundabout:
Floral Roundabout and Border:
If you have ever travelled through a village France and noticed a group of people having a heated discussion looking at balls on a dirt patch, you have seen petanque. It is a very simple game where each player has three metal balls and tries to throw them as closely as possible to the small wooden one called the “cochonnet”. It is usually played in teams, and while the rules are simple, the unevenness of the terrain must be taken into account, and there is skill involved in trying to hit the opponents ball to get it out of the way for example.
This small petanque terrain in Brittany couldn’t want for a more idyllic location, right on the water and surrounded with a small park!
The far end of this property has been is planted with tall trees and has bee turned into a woodland shaded garden accented with statues and still lives, and edged in a bamboo grove transitioning to the rest of the garden. Other plantings such as Japanese maple emphasize the Asian garden feel of this garden.
Globetrotting Gardener 