We tend to visit gardens at the height of their seasonal pomp so that we might marvel at the cleverness, deftness or daring of a gardener, but to see a truly wonderful garden in the wintertime is a rare treat. In some ways it’s similar to visiting the sewing room of a Parisian atelier in the lead-up to fashion week, to see the minutiae of construction, the structure and bones of a garment, all carefully worked on by precise, skilled hands.
Patrick and Sylvie Quibel, owners of the magnificent Jardin Plume in Auzouville-sur-Ry, Normandy, are self-taught. They started gardening over 40 years ago, although not here and not yet like this. Starting with perennials, they established a specialised nursery in the early 1990s. In 1996, after many trips to Britain, Belgium, Holland and Italy to visit gardens and meet their makers, they visited this village east of Rouen and found a house on a vast plot of land. Here lay an orchard and sheep, but no garden to speak of, none of the structure we find now, not yet the sense of artisanship that brings to mind silk, bone, lace and feather – so clearly on a winter’s morning – cobwebs and dew drawing golden filigree between the tops of grasses, bare trees and the stripped structure of rose bushes, all of which are evidence of the architectural magnificence of this plot at its seasonal best.
In less skilful hands, the breadth of styles and mélange of inspiration might jar, but not here. The garden wears its collisions effortlessly. The James Turrell-style pools that reflect the sky sit flanked by beds of grasses. From here, the views are back to the house, where the formality of clipped box hedges is softened by a riot of colourful nasturtiums and dahlias at the right time of year; or out towards the barns, which house the nursery and the Quibels’ garden-design business, and where yet more box is clipped into a whimsical rolling wave – a decision that brings to mind a stylish matriarch wearing a structured blazer and loafers while her hair is coiffured into a punk-style mohawk. That a sense of humour and a sense of integrity can exist so naturally side by side is testament to the skill of its creators and custodians.
What is evident throughout the year, but especially in the naked glare of winter, is that this is a garden that deals deftly with contradiction. The structural formality and neatly clipped hedges exhibit firm roots in the French tradition, but here too, whimsy and modernity take equal billing, be it in the box-clipped wave, wild sprawling euphorbia or the contemporary Oudolf-esque play with grasses such as Sporobolus, Panicum and Andropogon.
Equally, pragmatism and play sit side by side. This garden sits in flat farmland, and harsh winds whip across this part of France. As such, keeping plants upright and happy year round would be a fool’s errand. When the garden’s jewels – its erigerons, dahlias, helianthemums, verbenas and persicarias – are put away until a more suitable season, its soul remains in the structural hedges and tall, feathery grasses (from which the place takes its name). That the same minds that so logically dealt with the challenges of nature then decided to approach planting with such lightness, whimsy and wildness is exhilarating. In winter, the garden seems to revel in being revealed, as if stretching and breathing, preparing itself for the next year when the glitz and glamour start over again, when the wild riot of colour and accent and scent inevitably return to steal the show.
For more information, visit lejardinplume.com
.png)
