Garden stories
So, where did I leave off?
Ah, yes, my great-grand-parents had retired, and lived in the house year-long. Their main activity, I suppose, was the garden. Have I mentioned the garden? It's HUGE. In fact, it's not even one garden, no, there are four of them!
At the back of the house, directly behind it, there is a sort of walled garden with two very old fig trees in it, and an old shed in a corner (1). Then, perpendicular to it, and starting from the side of the house, there is a long strip that spreads all the way down to the neighbor's house (2). At the front of the house, on the other side of the small road that wounds through the hamlet, there is a sort of raised, smallish square garden (3) that you can access from cute little stone stairs. And finally, extending one one side, a long plot consisting of an orchard (walnut, apple, quince, pear, plum, cherry trees) and a meadow (4).
Here is a little map I made from the land registry:
As you can see, it is an extensive amount of "garden", but while my great-grand-parents lived there it was kept in check. Gustave had a large vegetable patch near the orchard, and let a neighbor use part of garden n°2 for a patch of his own. Marie was more interested in flowers: she had a lot of roses, hydrangeas, lilies-of-the-valley... they probably cut the grass in the meadow once a year and that was it. But after they died (Gustave in 1985, and Marie in 2005) the house was only inhabited in the summer months when my grand-mother Annette came over from Germany with her husband. They did what they could, but ultimately when he died and she became ill, it all started to go downhill. My parents had their own house and garden to take care of, and my brother and I lived too far away.
In May of 2015, my mother travelled to Germany to bring my grand-mother back to the house for the summer. We had decided to renovate the house so that she could live there, closer to us. We wanted to go through the contents of the house with her so she could choose what she wanted to keep. While my mom cleaned the house, I set about to clear the small garden at the back of the house (the one with the fig trees). It was a drop in the ocean, but so satisfying! This garden was really lovely back then: the overhanging branches of the fig-trees made a shadowy canopy, roses climbed over the back-door, vine crept along the stone wall... My very own "Secret Garden"! Everything was overgrown, but it was kind of perfect anyway.
My grand-mother arrived, and I spent the first week-end with her in the house to make sure that she was alright. She was frail, but she was happy to be there, and she told me old family stories over dinner. We were all looking forward to spending more time with her over the summer, but unfortunately a few days later she got suddenly sick and passed away.
We were all sad and very frustrated. But what somewhat consoled us was the knowledge that she was back in Brittany, in her beloved house, and that on her last day in the hospital she fell asleep thinking she was going home in a few days. The thing is, she was so sentimental about the house, it would probably have shocked her to see it gutted for the renovation. But the worst would probably have been for her to see what happened to the garden a few months later...
The fig trees were getting really out of control, its lower branches propped up with sticks but still falling down to the ground (at places even taking roots and growing up again!), the higher one invading the neighbors' garden and roof, depriving them of a lot of light. There was also a big pine tree in there that was taking all the light from one of the upstairs bedroom and needed to go. So my parents called a gardener to prune the fig trees, cut down the pine tree, and clear the back of the house to make it accessible for the renovation workers.
Which they did.
With more zeal than we had bargained for:
The garden was barely recognizable, and I cried for hours after I saw it (and whenever I thought about it in the next few weeks)
Now, two years later, nature has reclaimed its rights, and quite forcibly. The thing is, had we been there all the time to monitor regrowth, it would have been fine. We could have redesigned the garden the way we wanted, and although I would still have been sad about the trees and plants, it would have been a manageable clean slate. However, this is obviously not what happened. After the big old ugly cement cistern on the right was demo-ed and removed (along with the sheds at the far end), nothing happened. Work on the house was delayed - postponed rather, after my grand-mother's death, and the garden was left to its own devices. And while before, the shade from the trees limited growth underneath, now weeds were free to live their life freely.
So when I came back last july, they were waist-high all-over...
I made a pretty bouquet before I started cutting them down, but it was a MESS.
Here is what it looks like now. As you can see the fig trees are growing back, and we even have quite a few figs this year, but it will take a while before they are "beautiful" again. Some rose bushes have survived, and a small hydrangea as well, but it's going to take a lot of work to have grass again.
I haven't even started on the other gardens... I'm a bit overwhelmed by the scale of what needs to be done, but little by little, I know we'll get there! I already have a list of friends who would be happy to help, all of them under the charm of this little corner of paradise...!
Next time: an update on the house, with lots of before/process photos of the inside!
Marie xx
