May:
On May 4th we visited Denis Weis’s “Chemin de Ronde” garden in Figanière. Denis’s garden, named after a tour of the ramparts, was designed, as the name suggests, to lead one round the garden and to confuse one about its size – which it did, being crammed with a multitude of lovely and unusual plants. The visitor is greeted at the front gate by a Vitex agnus-castus (unfortunately too early for its lovely blue flowers) and then welcomed into the garden by perfumed roses (Rosa ‘Papa Delbard’, R. ‘Jacques Cartier’, R. ‘Celestial’ and R. canina). Entering the shady side of the house, where ferns flourished with shrubs, roses and trees including a white Cercis (from Pierre Cuche) overhanging the path, we were led through to a small lawn with hebe and pittosporum and hence to a Japanese area with bonsais. From here a bamboo tunnel led to a pond and thence to the potager and fruit garden back at the front of the house. 

Mercifully the rain held off until after lunch and a plant exchange at Carol Connolly’s garden in Bargemon but it scuppered the planned post-prandial visit to June Grindley’s garden.

On May 7th the sun finally shone for the visit to Joanna Millar’s splendid garden in Tourrettes-sur-Loup, where a superb lunch was followed by an excellent, informative talk on Roses and Clematis given by Yve Dyson. In Joanna’s garden one’s eye was constantly caught by something magnificent: from the bright yellow ‘Zantha’ iris to the deep blue ‘Jane Phillips’; from the Rosa mutabilis to the R. banksiae x gigantea climbing the pine beside the swimming pool; from the stunning huge deep blue Ceanothus to the quiet beauty of a little corner by the gate where a golden-leaved Philadelphus perfumed the air above a blue iris and a delicate white Tulbaghia in its pot.

Yve Dyson, speaking from her experience as a rose grower near Menton, gave us many helpful hints which will stop us struggling to try to grow clematis and roses unsuitable for the Riveria and will help us nurture and care for those that, like us, love the climate in Provence.

May 9th saw us in the south-east corner of the Var with a fascinating lesson in olive grafting from Fritz and Annette Hahn and a tour of their olive grove with its wide variety of olives and their many fruit trees in Ollioules.

Next, invited by their neighbours Philippe and Michelle Chrétien to see their garden and have a pre-lunch drink, we were delighted to see this beautifully designed, intensely planted space.

A profusely flowering Rosa filipes ‘Kiftsgate’ had welcomed us, grown unusually along the fence to the front gate. We then moved through a shady arbour, where the dark foliage was relieved by a flash of white from a variegated Pittosporum, to a lovely pond, followed by an immaculate potager and thence through to a shaded terrace loaded with drinks and nibbles.

Returning to the Hahns’ olive grove and fruit orchard, we ate our picnics and indulged in the delicious quiches, tarts and clatoufi cooked by the Hahns.

In the afternoon we travelled to the Domaine d’Orvès, Françoise Darlington’s beautifully mature garden. Surrounding a 16th-century bastide house, the garden has a stately air. From the entrance gate, emphasised by areas covered by Ceratostigma bisected diagonally by two small long waters, we took a path edged by irises and overhung by arches formed from fig trees which led up to a shaded terrace with more formal ponds edging it. Behind the house, the garden with lovely white Romneya, growing taller than I have seen in the UK, leads to an old chapel and a wooded area with many unusual plants and shrubs.

On Tuesday 16th June we visited the Mas des Mauriers, Michelle and Guy Beddington’s garden which is situated at one end of the interlocking group of valleys dominated by the village of Bargemon. The welcoming stone house was originally created from a barn and various outhouses by the previous owners but was enlarged and enhanced by Guy and Michelle. They have added a beautiful pool of dark green stone and planted the courtyard garden around it. Outside this partly enclosed space, Guy and Michelle are gradually clearing the undergrowth of an overgrown olive grove to create an open-air gallery for a number of intriguing installations by the Surinamese artist Marcel Pinas and beautiful, very large glazed pots by the German artist Peter Thumm.