Turning a blank canvas into a garden for all seasons

At Fromental in Haute-Vienne, there is a garden which has been created to give interest and colour all year round. Started in 1994, on land that had been uncultivated for some 11 years, Le Grand Bagnol garden is now full and mature. It surrounds an old farmhouse which was bought and renovated by Annie Specht Carpentier and her husband, Guy.

“I was from Haute-Vienne,” she tells me. “I went to work at the European Union’s Council of Ministers in Belgium. I met my husband in Belgium: he was an engineer. We decided we wanted a home in my native land.”

She smiles. “We found this property and Guy started restoring it and the outbuildings. I set about planning the garden. Everything had to be cleared. I had a blank canvas. I designed the garden on paper. It was only long weekends and holidays at first. We would often come from Belgium with a car full of plants. Partly because I didn’t want to waste the little time I had in Fromental going shopping and mainly because at that time there were very few specialist nurseries nearby and I simply could not find things locally.”

The land, including the buildings, makes up a hectare in total. The soil is acidic, allowing Annie to plant lots of things which struggle without ericaceous compost, and she can have hydrangeas which stay blue and do not turn pink (which turns me a little green with envy).

There are two distinct parts to the garden – on the upper level, there are lawns and mixed borders, and then a sloping English-style garden below. There is also a very productive potager (kitchen garden) with vegetables, salads and fruit trees and bushes.

“My parents always had a potager, it was normal to grow things. I like to cultivate and to propagate. I do lots of cuttings: roses and things. And divisions. I have a greenhouse to help with that. I want to be able to offer plants for sale when people come to the garden.”

There is a division too within the garden.

“Guy has his plants, his bits, and I have mine,” she laughs. “My mother-in-law had a beautiful garden in the English style – I loved it. I have visited many gardens in Belgium and the Netherlands and also all over the south of England, from Kent to Cornwall. I have walked through some magnificent gardens,” she remembers.

“We started slowly, a bit at a time. We came when we could. We added plants, cultivated the ground. We put in hedging but not boring hedging. Our hedges are full of interesting trees and shrubs – things that flower, those with autumn colour.”

Wide spectrum of colours

Annie’s hedges contain plants that might be specimens in other gardens: Exochorda (pearlbush), Gleditsia triacanthos (Sunburst honey locust), Sorbus (rowans), Prunus (flowering plums and cherries) and Malus (crabapples). They give colour and interest throughout the year, bring structure, provide protection from wind and sun and offer habitat to wildlife.

“We have planted lots of trees,” Annie says proudly. “In Belgium I went to the Société Belge de Dendrologie (The Belgian Society of Dendrology): they are extremely interesting people there. I learned a lot. We have planted a huge botanical variety to give us a wide spectrum of colours and forms: acers, Fraxinus angustifolia (the Raywood or Claret Ash), Sassafras and Cornus, so many Cornus. We have a C. kousa which is 10metres high now. We have C. florida with the pink flowers. We have paid attention not just to leaf colour but to the texture and colour of the bark too.”

Details matter, Annie notices. Autumn does not just bring red and gold leaves but violets, purples, oranges and bright yellow, followed by trunks with silver, grey, black and maroon bark that may be papery, patterned, smooth, matte or shiny.

Annie has ensured that there are lots of winter-flowering plants in the garden.

“We need some interest then, don’t we?” she asks. “I want to see things blooming, alive, at that time of year,” she asserts.

She has, making the most of the soil conditions, fabulous rhododendrons including Rhododendron ‘Christmas Cheer’. There is a collection of Hamamelis (witch hazels), with their firework flowers and powerful scent, echoed by Chimonanthus (wintersweet), and there are hellebores and snowdrops taking you through to the explosions of blooms in the spring garden.

Bulbs of every sort – narcissi, hyacinths, tulips, ixias and camassias – provide flowers in profusion alongside the big blooms of camellias and magnolias which flourish in these conditions. There is Camellia × williamsii ‘Donation’, which is extremely floriferous with semi-double deep-pink flowers, and a galaxy of Magnolia stellata in different hues.

As spring slides towards summer, the many clematises and roses burst into bloom. There are over a hundred different varieties. There are hydrangeas and viburnums and many phloxes.

I ask if there is water in the garden.

“We had to dig a borehole, 25 metres deep. We use a pump and I am very conscious of the need not to waste any water,” replies Annie.

“We have lost some trees to drought,” she admits sadly. “I think July and August can be the most difficult months in the garden. The plants can suffer if we have a canicule (heatwave) or prolonged periods without rain. They can really struggle. But things like our Persicaria look awful and then, after a shower, can just perk up and flower again. They are amazingly resistant. We have made shaded areas. We grow ferns and hostas.”

Annie and Guy have been opening the garden for a while now. I ask what prompted them to do this.

“I think anyone who creates something – a work of art, a piece of writing or music or, indeed, a garden – wants to share it with others. They want their creation to be out there. So that’s how we started. We open the first weekend in June, the Rendez-vous aux Jardins weekend. We do it for Association Open Gardens / Jardins Ouverts. We have other societies and club members visit too. And we offer to open by appointment through the Open Gardens website so that, at a mutually convenient time, people can visit the garden in all its seasons. They can see the colour in autumn, from the trees but also the asters and Persicaria, or they can enjoy the spring show.”

If you would like to visit this beautiful garden, do go to opengardens.eu but perhaps not this month – wait for La Rentrée (Back to School) and the start of Petit Printemps (literally, “Little Spring”, when the weather cools and the days get shorter).