HOME & GARDEN
SIMPLY LIVING FRANCE
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Clare’s French Country Diary
H
ello dear February readers. This is my first column here, so I’d like to offer you a little history about how we came to live in Vienne, France, and our life here. Simply, I married a Francophile, Martin. He loves everything French and although I had a short spell as an au pair in Brittany when I was 18, I honestly didn’t have the same love of France. Gradually, through holidays around various parts of France, we found an area which we felt could be home in the future, and began to talk about buying a holiday home. Fast forward 12 years, and we moved into it! The garden was a weedy mess, just two rose bushes for colour and various elder trees needing attention. Gradually, during that first real incumbent springtime, I came back to life, and started to think this could be our forever garden and a place to put down our roots. Where to start though? I was told to plan very little for the first year, to look which plants pop up and where, and watch where the sun goes around the garden at different
times of day and year. This proved good advice and helped me avoid mistakes. Next, we seriously needed some fencing to contain the dogs and provide some privacy. This area is built on limestone, as are the houses, and the garden, well you guessed it, lots of huge stones just below the surface. The fence posts were extremely tricky to put in, we borrowed a garden drill implement to help make the fence post-holes one very hot May! Over the years, we have planted apple trees which have given us amazing crops, and last year two cherry trees. I will be happy to see them blossom and in future years produce some cherries. I have become something of a rose addict too. The two inherited old rose bushes, Peace and Queen Elizabeth, have inspired me to learn about them and over the last two years I have planted climbers, ramblers and shrub roses. An idea formed last summer to start an entire new rose bed. The best time to plant roses is wintertime so I researched the rose growers and just after Christmas, placed my order for six bare
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