FRENCH BLOOMS ❘ NATURE NOTES
SECRET SPACES
SOME OF MY FAVOURITE GARDENS Since Paris is my second home, it’s no surprise that I have accumulated a list of favourite places, such as where to buy French-girl cashmere sweaters and enjoy the ultimate steak frites. I also have a list of beloved gardens, flower shops, and antiques markets, which I share throughout this book. Below are the gardens that I love to stroll through, especially when they’re filled with blooms.
JARDIN DES PLANTES 5th arrondissement Founded in 1625 as a royal garden of medicinal plants, this 68 acre oasis also houses Paris’s oldest zoo, a school of botany and a natural history museum. I enjoy strolling through the grounds to see the incredible bounty of breathtaking blooms and plants.
Above: Sandra Sigman tends blooms in her garden; her book is bursting with ideas on growing and arranging flowers à la française
floral designs taught at most flower arranging schools, like pyramids and balls. Instead, working with specific containers and chosen florals and foliage, the French build each bouquet as if it were a bespoke work of art, adding a sprig of this and that to create an organic, three-dimensional whole. Each arrangement is unique and doesn’t follow a cookie-cutter design because no two flowers are alike.
UNUSUAL VARIETIES
French florists rarely use humdrum flowers, like daisies, pungent lilies, gladioli and baby’s breath. Why? These flowers are grown in abundance and would detract from the overall masterpiece. Instead, they look for unusual seasonal varieties and let each flower’s intrinsic quirks and qualities add structure, rhythm, and texture to the final display, along with complexity and surprise. The French embrace imperfection because it adds individuality. Think about a bouquet of long-stemmed red roses. You’d rarely see that in France. That’s because the commonality of only red roses makes it hard to showcase any design creativity. Instead, the French take a monochromatic approach and combine a few red roses with other similarly-hued florals in, say, burgundy, magenta, and dark pink. The result is more exciting and ultimately stunning. The French add texture and contrast to their arrangements by choosing flowers and greenery to juxtapose against one another. For example, they might set off smooth elements, like lush, green hosta leaves, with nubby ones, like hyacinth buds or a branch of unripe blackberries. A round sprig of sweet william might pair with a spray of lisianthus. A spiky mass of sea holly might be softened with cashmere- like lamb’s ear.
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JARDIN DES TUILERIES 1st arrondissement These gardens, which separate the Louvre Museum from the Place de la Concorde, take their name from the tile factories formerly located on the site. Queen Catherine de’ Medici chose to build the Palais des Tuileries here in 1564. André Le Nôtre, the heralded gardener for King Louis XIV, re-landscaped the gardens in 1664 in today’s formal French style. I particularly love these gardens in early spring when the magnolia trees are in full bloom.
PARC DE BAGATELLE 16th arrondissement – Bois de Boulogne The park and its château were built in 64 days in 1775 based on a wager between Queen Marie Antoinette and her brother-in-law the Count of Artois. It is one of the City of Paris’s four botanical gardens and a hidden gem. My favourite part of the park is the stunning rose garden composed of 10,000 rosebushes in more than 1,200 varieties.
GIVERNY GARDENS Eure, Normandy It takes only 1.5 hours by train to travel from Paris to Giverny, where artist Claude Monet lived and created two charming gardens. The Clos Normand garden contains masses of flowers, fruit trees, and climbing roses, while the
The Jardin du Luxembourg was commissioned in 1612
Japanese-inspired water garden has bridges, weeping willows, and water lilies. The gardens inspired many of Monet’s most famous paintings.
JARDIN DU LUXEMBOURG 6th arrondissement Queen Marie de’ Medici, the widow of King Henry IV, commissioned the construction of this majestic garden in 1612 when she moved her residence from the Louvre to Luxembourg Palace. The garden’s design took inspiration from the Boboli Gardens in Florence, where she was born. I love seeing all the colourful blooms, shady footpaths, and the central pond circled with those quintessentially Parisian sage-green metal chairs. This garden still takes my breath away every time I visit.
EPHRUSSI DE ROTHSCHILD VILLA AND GARDENS Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Nine glorious themed gardens lie nestled around the Ephrussi de Rothschild Villa: French, Spanish, Florentine, Japanese, a lapidary garden, an exotic garden, a rose garden, and gardens dedicated to Provence and Sèvres.
Jun/Jul 2023 FRANCE TODAY ❘ 39
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