the Zen garden – un sentiment de paix et de sérénité dans le temps suspendu

A visit, a while ago, to a garden Le Jardin d’Eden, with a personality – a living energy – that has remained engrained in my memory. Not only for the impact that this landscape (I prefer this description) made but also the experience of the visit after a very hot summer here in the Gard, the journey north to the Drôme in October was a boon – it even rained . . . eventually.

And so on arrival, le jardin d’accueil (the welcome garden) – delicate in treatment but also somehow firm – and where Erik Borja’s sculptural identity balances with his obvious talent as a gardener. https://www.erikborja.fr

There is a small basin here where the visitor can purify themselves according to Feng Shui but honestly I was more taken with the leaf drop neatly sitting within the raked gravel . . .

Wandering into the Jardin de Thé alongside and running below the main house, folks were busy tidying on high instead of offering cups of tea and quite rightly as it was that time of the year – leaves were falling down to below .

Now it is a woodland garden in the grounds of the ancient Convent des Cordeliers but originally the family farmed the fruit orchards on the surrounding land . . .

. . . signs of people playing on the ground. And signs of great instinctiveness with the creation of the third dimension - volumes and spaces both generous and narrow to frame views through to beyond.

Here we start to feel how Borja’s origins – Algeria with the Mediterranean garden ethic – have manifested into a particular landscape.

. . . still signs of the family fruit farm .

In the Dragon Garden, having followed narrow sinuous paths, the miniature waterfalls and basins reflect the Herbasse river with, in the autumn, colour from the acers boosting the contrast with the evergreen structure.

Bold bamboo planting by the boundary river the Isère which flows down from the Italian Alps into the Rhône above Valence. The scent of anything flowering or from foliage is subsequently held in the garden..

.. and to the Garden of Meditations – the most recent creation, I believe.

Erik Borja sadly passed away this winter; His garden is his legacy enjoyed by many.

I came once to sit on Cold Mountain
And lingered here for thirty years.
Yesterday I went to see relatives and friends;
Over half had gone to the Yellow Springs.
Bit by bit life fades like a guttering lamp,
Passes on like a river that never rests.
This morning I face my lonely shadow
And before I know it tears stream down.

Today I sat before the cliff,

Sat a long time till mists had cleared.

A single thread, the clear stream runs cold;

A thousand yards the green peaks lift their heads.
White clouds—the morning light is still;
Moonrise—the lamp of night drifts upward;
Body free from dust and stain,

What cares could trouble my mind?


The clear water sparkles like crystal,
You can see through it easily, right to the bottom.
My mind is free from every thought,
Nothing in the myriad realms can move it.
Since it cannot be wantonly roused,
Forever and forever it will stay unchanged.
When you have learned to know in this way
You will know there is no inside or out!  ColdMoutain Han Shan

hope springs eternal

I hang my head in shame – refuse to blame covid or indeed political issues – and promise myself that in 2021 I must try harder . . .

to think about and organise and produce more posts to keep sane and hopeful. Today, January 2nd, it’s cold, windy and a tad grey – even here in the south of France – as the photo shows, but I appreciate the composition in the quickly snapped photo of the upper garden, the fore shortening and pixelation both of which have given the image an abstract quality. I appreciate and revel in the tones . . .

. . . as in the big view, the tones in winter are more beautiful and harmonious than in other seasons. The vines are mostly pruned and stand silently like battalions waiting to charge . . .

shame about the turquoise plastic collars around the new plants but they add a touch of something . . .

a cluster of poplars by the stream have the similar quiet attributes of clematis still now after scrambling along the verges – the fluffy seedheads still hanging on . . .

. . . returning home this winter musing is thrown up in the air like a jugglers ball when the persimmon greets me and shouts out ‘always to be blest’.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me. Emily Dickinson

other gardens Chaumont 2015 part 2

A follow on post from this. And to set the scene: rivers of salvias – masses of Salvia ‘Amistad’ and S. uliginosa in late summer run riot through the planted areas around the park and the two areas of the festival site. Just wanted to acknowledge a  couple more of the temporary garden installations that worked well.  ‘À table’ – the theme of an edile table which recurs and never disappoints – to share a meal in the form of a garden party but, here, seated on benches with carnivorous plants suspended as lights over the long refectory table packed with old species of edibles,produced by pollination,  so unsuitable for large scale cultivation – black tomatoes, purple peppers, violet cauliflowers and climbing spinach . . .

. . . the planting, edging the garden, reverts to the ever popular flowery mead style.

‘Cuisine Africaine’ showcased edible plants and seeds from the African bushveld required for the survival of human, insect and animal life.

Centre stage in this garden was a spectacular metal and wire wrapped sculpture  – a homage to the significance of the Boabab tree in this landscape – the canopy offering shade for villagers and travellers. A place  to meet, to rest and to eat under.  Leon Kluge built a good garden.

Farfugium japonicum, an evergreen ligularia, looking resplendent in containers in the hospitality area. An extremely French look –  but beware as this plant needs copious watering grown like this.

In the Prés du Goauloup, a large flat area of landscaped park adjacent to the festival site, some of the garden installations from previous years have been relocated; many are Chinese . . .

. . . the red ribbon of ‘Carré et Rond’ or ‘land and sky’ integrates the contemporary concept of storm water management with the philosophical ideas of the link with man to water in traditional Chinese garden. Designed by Yu Konglian for the 2012 festival.

I find this poplar group very pleasing and, equally interesting, is a site specific installation by Chris Drury called ‘Carbon Pool’ –  a magnetic spiral of felled cedar lengths capturing some of the Goualoup Park secrets and appearing to drag them down into the earth.

New planting of Liquidambers make a seasonal frame.

Selected existing mature trees are partnered with sculptural but also practical landscape elements . . .

. . . leaving the festival but looking forard to the next event. views across the Loire river beyond the fiery Rhus – a willow and poplar landscape just losing the green and softening to yellow.

I have built a house in the middle of the Ocean

Its windows are the rivers flowing from my eyes

Octopi are crawling all over where the walls are

Hear their triple hearts beat and their beaks peck against 
the windowpanes

House of dampness

House of burning

Season’s fastness

Season singing

The airplanes are laying eggs

Watch out for the dropping of the anchor

Watch out for the shooting black ichor

It would be good if you were to come from the sky

The sky’s honeysuckle is climbing

The earthly octopi are throbbing

And so very many of us have become our own gravediggers

Pale octopi of the chalky waves O octopi with pale beaks

Around the house is this ocean that you know well

And is never still.  Guillaume Apollinaire  

Ocean of Earth to G.de Chrico.