Due to the magic of technology, previously written posts have been showing up here on the blog while I've been traveling around France photographing plants and gardens for the last couple of weeks. My husband and I finally took our 30th anniversary trip (after being married 37 years...took us awhile to pull it together) to Paris and the south of France.
Who would have known that France is a gardener's paradise? I was spellbound with everything from the formal gardens at the Tuleries to the agaves sprouting from the rocky cliffs above the Mediterranean Sea. You can't believe the beauty and lushness of the Mediterrean coast, with lemons, hibiscus and oleander everywhere, and the hugest magnolia trees I've ever seen. Public gardens, like this one at the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, a villa high above the sea in Cap Ferrat, are filled with exotic succulents.
And in Paris, crape myrtles (Lagerstroemia) were in full bloom at the base of the Eiffel Tower the last week in September.
I was surprised at the complexity and variety of the bedding in all the parks, narrow strips of plantings outlining public squares, paved or grassy. At Versailles, the color scheme was silvery pale, almost ghostly; at the Luxembourg Gardens on the Left Bank, the bedding was more colorful, with Melianthus major, fountain grass, and hot pink and purple dalias.
Stay tuned for a look at Paris's fabulous trees, enchanting flower shops, and the exotic plants along the Mediterranean Sea...
