Our New Garden Is Helping Me Grow
When we moved in to our home in the south of France, it came with a new responsibility. Learning how to deal with it is rewarding.
Early March and there are daffodils in the garden. In the afternoon the sunshine is often warm enough for coffee outside, or at least to turn a few pages of a book. Tiny dust-coloured lizards emerge to bask on the stone terrace. The skies are scrubbed blue. But at night the temperature plunges to below freezing.
I didn’t know what to expect of winter in the south of France. In his book Caesar’s Vast Ghost, Lawrence Durrell described it as “short but brutal”, so I suppose I should have been warned. Right now the weather here in the Rhône valley seems to helter-skelter from mild to bone-chilling, especially when the mistral wind rips through you like an iced x-ray.
In daytime, blossom and sunglasses. At night, I worry about frost.
It’s new, this caring for something extraneous to my family, my friends. A garden. A rectangle of earth and plants. But at least it keeps my mind off the news. I believe we all need somewhere, anywhere, that allows us to feel at peace. We have the right to shield our mental health. For me, the garden is a place of solace.
Also a distraction — because most of the time, I don’t know what I’m doing.
Over the summer, while the house was being renovated and we were renting an apartment, I visited from time to time to wield the watering can and explore this new domain. Insects bumbled about, mosquitos arrowed at my bare legs. There was a wooden shed, full of alien tools, a legacy of the previous owner. I trimmed the wisteria with the ungainly shears, feeling like a city slicker down on the farm.
The last time I lived in a house with a garden, it belonged to my parents. I remember summers through a sepia filter: sprawled on a blanket under the apple tree, reading comics as the school holidays spooled on. After that came a long series of city apartments, solo or shared. Now, with our new home, this sudden responsibility. I can’t get away with just mowing the lawn for some pocket money. Plant lives are at stake.
Plus, I owe it to the lady who lived here before. She loved this garden. It’s planted with olive trees, oleander, rosemary, mint and sage. We’ve yet to see what hidden delights the spring will bring. The plant identification app is about to experience its glory days.
Madame had a gardener who came once a year to trim the hedges and the wisteria. So we asked him back, mostly to feed on his advice. His little white pickup truck manifested in the drive at 8.15 one morning. Grégoire: tall and rangy, eagle-nosed, as spare and brown as the branch of a tree.
He took us on a tour, telling us where to trim, when to cut back. He looked at the brimming compost bin, another leftover from the previous occupant. “Some people treat them like garbage cans, throwing branches and all sorts if garden refuse into them,” he said. Did I detect a sideways glance? That was exactly what I’d been doing, of course. My face felt hotter than the pale March sunshine merited.
Then he worked his magic, leaving the garden looking spruce, like a clean shave after a week of stubble. After that, he bid us goodbye and left in his trusty truck. Now it was up to us.
We’re trying. We prune and weed. We smile tenderly as buds emerge. On Saturdays we make sorties to the cavernous garden center, which is called Truffaut, like the New Wave film director (although Wikipedia tells me it was founded by one Charles Truffaut in 1824). We’ve decided to plant mimosa, so we can enjoy its vivid yellow flowers next winter. We’ve seen it popping brazenly over the fence in other gardens, so we know it can survive. If we take care of it properly, which is not a given.
We’re also looking for a table for the terrace. Big enough to seat ten, because that’s one of the central purposes of our garden: conviviality. Between parents, in-laws and cousins, we have a lot of family down here. We like to get together for meals, talking over one another, passing dishes and bottles. For the moment all that takes place inside, with a fire flickering in the grate. But soon lunches and dinners will move outdoors, under the orange-striped awning, with a view of the garden.
When I clear leaves and pull up weeds, that’s what I’m setting the scene for. Like a set designer, I’m creating a backdrop for the ancient privilege of a family meal.
