Gaëlle Dufour - The Gardens: Part 2

The Gardens of Château Momo

Part 2 - Planting

After planning comes planting

In the previous post, I explained how the garden will be split into dedicated spaces for different activities: nourish, move, and reflect. In the "nourish" area, we plan on growing berries and fruit trees and eventually a vegetable garden. And, because the spaces ought to be not only functional but also beautiful, the "move" space will double as a rose garden.

This November, the gardens are starting to take shape: 3 fruit trees, 12 climbing roses, 4 rose bushes, and 5 berry shrubs were planted, one step at a time.

The newly planted Nashi tree

Fruit trees and shrubs

I selected trees that bear fruits that I love, some of which are harder to find or outrageously expensive in stores.

a nashi apple-pear tree - crisp and refreshing
a mirabelle plum tree - delicious gold fruits that taste like honey to me
a "brugnon" tree - a fruit very similar to a small nectarine
blackberry shrubs
raspberry shrubs

The only element that I needed to buy was the nashi. For all the others, I was able to get them from my parents' and sister's gardens. It meant simply collecting them from the feet of existing trees - easy! :)

New Dawn (Roses Guillot)

Rose bushes

I carefully chose 12 climbing roses varieties. Two of my criteria were common to all the roses: they had to be repeat-flowering and they had to smell good! We will always have an excuse to stop and smell the roses :)

I then paid attention to the height that they could reach. For instance, to climb on the side of the barn (the wall reaches a height of over 10m), I chose New Dawn, capable of climbing up to 5m.

For the house, and the front of the barn, which need more moderate climbers, I chose hues of white, light pink, salmon and apricot with:

Mme Alfred Carrière
Ghislaine de Féligonde
Belle de Londres

Mme Alfred Carrière (Roses Guillot)

3x Ghislaine de Feligonde (Roses Guillot)

An other New Dawn (Roses Guillot)

2x Belle de Londres

For the Garden of Gains structure (3-4 m high), I chose a pink and rose color palette of strong climbers:

Zephirine Drouhin
Salma Es Said
Le grand huit grimpant

2x Zephirine Drouhin (Roses Guillot)

Salma Es Saïd (Roses Guillot)

Le grand huit grimpant

Planting season

November is ideal for planting in Southwest France:

this is the end of autumn so all the reserves of the plant (acquired through photosynthesis in spring and summer) are at their highest and migrated into the trunk, roots and branches - the plant is thus stronger.
there is no risk of frost yet, so no risk of damaging the young plant.
and the trees and roses will have the full winter to get settled. The hope is that they are then more than ready to explode with Life in spring.

There is even a popular saying: "À la sainte Catherine (Nov. 25th), tout bois prend racine", which means roughly that any tree and shrub ("wood") planted around November 25th will develop roots easily.

I received most of the roses "naked roots" from Roses Guillot

We started by digging a hole. Fortunately, most of the soil seems quite rich in Château Momo.

Then we added the roses, a little bit of soil, and watered it.

We added more and more soil, but not too much.

Et voilà!

And now, let's wait for Spring and Summer and see who likes living here, and who needs help or adjustments.

To be continued...

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