19. Pensées jardinières
published at 16/03/2018
This garden by Pascal Garbe and Didier Willery celebrates the pansy, in all its diversity – even if their garden has been given the misleading, ambiguous and tongue-in-cheek title “la pensée unique” (a play on the French word “pensée”, which means both “thought” and “pansy”).
The International Garden Festival of Chaumont-sur-Loire could not pay tribute to the “Gardens of Thought” without a nod to the “Gardener’s Thoughts”..
The gardener, whether a simple enthusiast, veteran, professional or “gardener in their spare time”, thinks about the plants that will soon flower. They think about the new, little-known plants that they will be able to put in their flower beds. They also think about the great gardeners and about their own thoughts.
Their thoughts also evolve with time and today they no longer plant in the way they did yesterday. They allow their, often overactive, imagination, to wander among the flowers, foliage and fragrances… to weave a beautiful and good patchwork, painting an ideal vision of the garden and the flower beds.
Lastly, and from time to time, they think about pansies, these violas, symbols of Love, at once beautiful and good, ideal for gardeners just starting out. Viola cornuta, violets of Toulouse, Parma violets or Viola cryana Gillot, horticultural or wild pansies, they can picture them blooming in a pot, or a hanging basket. To them, these pansies are like ambassadors to spring; hundreds of flowers for weeks at an end, like a promise of happiness that is simple and subtle.
Pensées Jardinières takes you on a fairytale journey where the garden becomes simple, beautiful, elegant, delicious ... so simple, so beautiful, so elegant, so delicious…
… like the promises of pansies, one fine morning in Spring.
DESIGNERS
Didier WILLERY, author, journalist and botanical consultant, and Pascal GARBE, Director of the Laquenexy Fruit Gardens [Moselle]
FRANCE
The first a Garden fanatic, the second Crazy about plants, Pascal Garbe and Didier Willery have been working together for nearly 30 years.
Didier Willery harbours a lifelong passion for plants and gardens. In his own 2,500 m2 garden in northern France, he has spent 30 years experimenting with a wide array of plants and plant combinations which he shares in scores of specialist magazine articles, books (33 to date) and a blog: www.dinguedeplantes.blogspot.fr as well as a number of conferences. He splits his time between working as “Garden” Editorial Manager for the Ulmer publishing house and managing the plant collections of the Vasterival Garden [Princess Sturdza’s Garden] in Normandy.
A towering figure in the world of gardening, Pascal Garbe is Director of the Laquenexy Fruit Gardens [Moselle]. He is the only Frenchman to be a member of international gardening panels of judges [Philadelphia, Singapore, Auckland, etc.]. A lover of beautiful and beneficial plants, he cultivates and cooks in his garden in the Moselle hills.
Didier and Pascal had the opportunity of designing a garden at Chaumont-sur-Loire back in 2003 on the theme “Nature tamed”, so here they are making a comeback 15 years later!
