Tag Archives: France

A report from France

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A big thanks to Spike from Morschen43 for sharing more photos of his garden in Le Puy-en-Velay, France. As you can see, looking at the pictures (aboove and below), a hell of a lot work has been done over the last couple of weeks and there’s a nice new fence up as well. Sterling work Spike!

If you can remember what the garden was like (below) before the pickaxe, fork and shovel were applied and when it was full of couch grass and dandelions (here), all we can say is “Wow!”

And there’s been a massive bit of pruning on his Granny Smith’s apple tree (below)). Spike was gifted the tree by his grandmother for his 13th birthday and it’s now 35 years old. Here are the before and after pictures of the big cut. It does look a bit severe, but it did need it and we are sure it will grow back fine.

We found out the gardening runs in the family as Spike’s father was a market gardener and swore by gardening using the moon. It’s been a long time since we used the Biodynamic method and Maria Thun‘s Book here but perhaps we will revisit it and give it a try. What have we got to lose?

Cheers for the great pictures of your garden again Spike and keep them coming!

And thanks a million to Spike for playing Jasmine & Madtone’s “Open up your heart” at 50.08 minutes in on his Vampire Freaks radio show here (N°365) here.

A bit of a prune for a plum tree on a sunny afternoon

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Cheers to Spike from Morschen43, for letting us know he was out in his garden in Le Puy-en-Velay in Southern France today, giving his Quetsch plum tree a bit of a prune and for sending us some pictures.

The weather looks great over there, he was saying it was sunny and around 11 degrees C. That’s a nice extended pair of loppers in the bottom picture Spike and do keep sending us those garden updates please.

A message from the south of France

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A big thanks to Debby H who is out in the south of France at the moment enjoying some nice weather of around 28 degrees and there’s only been the odd day of rain since May. Picture above is the front garden with mainly self seeded/volunteer plants in the bed which looks great especially with the rocks/stones around it.
The other night she had a visit from some wild boar and as she said “They are complete vandals. They trampled down the vine (pic above), destroying a dozen bunches of tiny grapes that were just beginning to grow in the back garden. The poor thing is now a shadow of its former glory”
“They also destroyed one of the bird feeders, which was about 5 foot off the ground in a bush.” Here’s a pic of some lavender in the garden after being trampled by the boar. And we thought we had it bad in Forest Hill with the parakeets, the Ladywell heron and the foxes!
“What is good though is that the front garden is unharmed including the little lilac tree that is only about a foot tall, after about 5 years of growing (above). The soil here is like concrete and most plants die. Anything that self seeds, I allow to stay and it’s those that usually flourish.”

What is strange though is her oleander (above) is the only one in the whole region that isn’t flowering! We hope it’s a bit of a late starter and it surpises you Debby.

And Debby took some pictures of the other oleanders in her neighbourhood below.
Thanks again Debby for the great pictures and we’re always up for seeing other people’s gardens and around their locality.