For several days I've been posting about the house we bought in the Saint-Aignan area (Loire Valley, France) in 2002. One of its most attractive features was its yard ("garden" in UK English, I believe). The house sits on half an acre (2,300 m²) of land and is enclosed on three sides by a tall laurel hedge. The land on the north side of ours is wooded. Remember, we had been living for eight years in a house in San Francisco that had a yard that measured about 25 x 30 ft. (8 x 7 meters). We were moving from an urban to a rural environment, and we wanted room for a big vegetable garden. Here's a slide show I made using some photos I took the first time I saw the house and the yard (December 10, 2002).
There's no real front yard here, but there's a large side yard on the north side of the house and a very large back yard on the west side of the house. It was all landscaped, as you can see, but we had to have two trees, a linden and a spruce, cut down as soon as we moved in, because they weren't healthy. Two plum trees blew over in a storm in 2010. Since then we've also lost two apple trees and a pear tree. And we plan to have another big spruce tree cut down this year — it's not healthy and it's too close to the house. We're contemplating whether or not to have some new trees planted, and what kinds. Cherry? We still have two apple trees. Walnut? Time will tell.
The green leaved plants at fifty seconds look like what we call Elephants Ears. Like in many areas of language, we have a bob each way (a gambling bet of a shilling), with a back yard and a front garden.
ReplyDeleteThank you Andrew for your question about Elephant Ears. I have always known it in France as a Saxifrage, but the research you sent me in about saxifrage didn't produce any result right away. I persisted and finally found out that this plant is a Bergenia of the saxifrage family. It has many vernacular names such as, as you say, Elephant Ears. Quod erst demonstrandum.
DeleteI did a post about elephant ears/bergenia about six years ago.
DeleteIn Texas Elephant Ears mean something else. Giant leaves that come from a bulb, Colocasia Taro:
Deletehttps://www.plantdelights.com/collections/colocasia-elephant-ear-bulb
Saxifrage in appearance reminds me of Dragon Begonias...hadn't heard of it before.
For a tree, how about a northern magnolia? Lovely in Bloom and nice shade:
https://www.vpr.org/post/vermont-garden-journal-growing-magnolias-north#stream/0
I think I remember those colocasia plants from when I spent some time in Florida in the 1970s.
DeleteThanks CHM. Most interesting.
DeleteYep Ken, that is the one. Six years ago, I must have read it.
DeleteI would advise against a walnut... 15 years to first fruits... if you are lucky... time will definitely tell!!
ReplyDeleteGood point. What I would really like is a pecan tree, but it's not realistic. It's not hot enough here in the summer for the tree to set fruit.
DeleteYou had a very nice yard/garden when you bought the house and you have made it even better. I’m guessing that you had some gardening experience while growing up in NC but was St Aignan your first gardening since then or did you have a small garden in San Francisco as well?
ReplyDeleteMy mother had great vegetable gardens for years — the best tomatoes — but I'm afraid I wasn't of much help to her, except in the eating. Walt and I started doing some vegetable gardening in Washington DC in the '80s, and again in Silicon Valley in the '90s. Later, our little back yard in SF wasn't big enough for a vegetable garden, the so-called summers were too damp and chilly, and we were entirely too busy at work to tend a garden.
Deletehazelnut? chestnut? Fruit or nut trees are delicious ideas. Your vegetable garden is wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI'd never heard of elephant ears as saxifrage. I thought saxifrage was an Arctic-region flower.
ReplyDeleteI've been having some trouble leaving comments. I write them, tap on Publish, and then realize when I look again a few hours later that they've vanished into thin air. Sorry.
ReplyDelete