My garden in June.

A little while ago I gave you an idea of what my garden looked like, well now I can show you how it's looking  at the end of June. Hope you like what you see.




This is a selection of the soft colours.

 

This year we have not had the best of weather, a cold May & a rainy June. We were wondering if summer was ever going to arrive, as mid-summers day has been and gone. However it's finaly arrived in full force, it's hot with clear blue sky and the plants are beginning to look healthy and are blooming well, so I'm happy. I've always been a sunshine girl.
Today the floral committee from our local commune arrived with their clip boards. I told you about my first experience of this, not long after we arrived to live in France. After 22 yrs they have not changed very much.
However I did notice that they had a a new member who knew her flowers. The others are quite happy just chatting about everyday life, as long they can have a look around, they're quite content. This committee has to pass first, they select 2 or 3 from the commune to be entered into the department competition, then a week later the horticulturist committee comes to judge, that's when the important part starts. The  local French people seem to be very curious , I'm not sure if it's because I'm English, but now we have lots of English in our area, so I can no longer think of it as 'Un coin perdu'  (a place miles from anywhere)



Surfinias
If you don't know this flower, it's certainly one to have for it's heavenly perfume.
& the vibrant colours. these are planted in troughs so they tumble down over the balcony.

The pale mauve flower is  double Surfinia.
Look at the lovely marbling on the petals
This one is my favourite.

In a few more weeks these troughs will be totaly hidden

 by the profusion of the flowers.



 This antique wine bottle corker was found in a brocante.
I've had it a long time
but now found just the place to show it off.



Hope you liked what you saw.

I'll be back again soon showing more of my hanging baskets as they progress.

A bientot

Barbara Lilian

My garden in France.

 I have a love for France and in the short time since I created my blog, I can see that so many of you share the same feelings. Maybe it's a holiday you've spent somewhere in France  where ever it might be and you have  wonderful memories, which you've taken back home. So I felt I wanted to share a selection of pictures I have taken of my garden from summers here at our home in France.

The arbour with roses & honeysuckle.

So French

Colourful Geraniums in pots.

A colourful mixture of herbs & annual flowers.

This is our well. After my man gave it some TLC

Which we can now use to water the flowers.

One of my many hanging baskets.

I can't wait for this summers flowers to be in full bloom. I'll show the results in a few weeks time.

Hope you'll come back to me to see the results.

Enjoy your gardening where ever you are even if it's only a window box.

a bientot

Barbara Lilian

A posy 'du Muguet.'

One of the many traditions still celebrated in France, on the 1st. May is to give someone a sprig of Lilly of the Valley. This tradition was started in 1561 by King Charles 1X. he decided to offer all the ladies of the court a sprig of Muguet. 'Apporter du bonheur'  (to bring happiness ) to the person you give it to. What a lovely tradition.
My 1st sprig of Muguet was given to me by my old friend Leonard. Sadly his wife had died shortly before we arrived to live in the village. I only wish I could have met her we would have had a lot to share.  I was told she had always loved flowers and had planted them here & there around the village, any where she thought needed brightening up. The village was known by everyone as 'Le Village Fleuris' This was one of the reasons we were attracted to it. We had been searching for some time with an 'Immobilier' for a house to use as a holiday home, at that time not realising how soon it would become our home! On the last day before we were due to return to England he showed us a cottage style house with a barn bigger than the house and much more land than we could ever use. As soon as we entered the village I fell in love with it,  there were flowers everywhere. Which 22 yrs ago at that time was not the No.1 priority. Most of the land around the houses in the village were full of rows of vegetables & fruit trees. Later I did ask an old lady in my poor French, along with sign language why she didn't have any flowers and her reply was, 'if you can't eat it, why grow it'. Yes there was the odd pot of Geraniums at the front door, but rare to see the whole village planted with flowers.
I was in my element & over the time I introduced hanging baskets and a vast variety of flowers they had  never seen before, which I mixed together. I was told by one of the villagers 'that's not how you do it, each type of flower must have it's own pot'. However I plodded along doing my own thing, putting up the odd hanging basket, & filling any old enamel bucket or basket I'd found amongst all the debris which had been left in the barn. Outside was beginning to look quite colourful, even though we were all still sleeping in the one room, while the rest of the house was under renovation. 
One day at the beginning of July I looked out of the window & saw several people wandering around the area at the front of the house, at that time I could hardly call it a terrace; each with a clip board and pencil all taking particular interest in the hanging baskets, which were full of trailing plants, looking OK; but not to my usual standard, however it was the best I was able achieve with the choice I could find in the area. Thankfully I was able to understand more French than I could speak, so I gathered they were judging my floral efforts. I had no idea they were the local commune floral committee !  judging for a competition I had not entered. I was told, 'it didn't matter, they would enter my name for me.' How simple can things be, it could only happen in France. So that was the beginning of the yearly floral competition for me. Never realising how competitive the rest of the villagers would become. I'll continue that story some other time.

My first petite bouquet of 'Muguet' will always bring back happy memories of my time spent in 'Le Village Fleuris'

                                

I hope my posy 'apporte du bonheur'

 will bring happiness to all my readers.





Indoors wth a Home and Garden magazine.

It's really April showers weather in my corner of France. I'd hoped to do all sorts in the garden, but now at my age I only work outside when it's NOT raining. Gone are the days when I'd be a busy Bee doing things like there was no tomorrow. So I've spent some time indoors browsing through some of my old magazines. One in particular it's Danish, unfortunately I can only look at the pictures but the decorating ideas from other peoples homes are so lovely it's well worth it. I usualy bring it back with me when we go to visit our grandchildren. http://www.isabellas.dk/

Isabellas magazine