Blue is the color...

Blue wheelbarrows, blue planter boxes, blue pots, and blue flowers everywhere--that was this year's L'Art du Jardin festival in Paris. The City of Light's very own contribution to the busy national garden festival calendar, this year's version--the tenth--was particularly inspiring.

With typically French complexity, it had not one--but two--themes: the color blue and the garden cabane. Different from the anglo-saxon idea of the garden shed, the cabane is more than just a storage space. It is a rustic, hopefully charming sort of shack where the gardener, friends, and family actually hang out in the midst of the garden.




The cabane is almost always furnished with at least a tiny table and a couple of mismatched chairs for that quintessentially French activity that enhances any experience: prendre un verre (to take a glass--of wine, naturally, or perhaps a home-brewed aperitif). This special spot for soaking up l'esprit du jardin firsthand is a cherished and emotional part of French gardening tradition.

The most charming example I saw at the festival of the cabane was a prototype modern roulotte (above), or gypsy caravan. "Not really movable," I was puzzlingly told by the creator. "But of course, we would deliver it with a truck." I took this to mean that the roulotte wasn't exactly roadworthy. But it was very charming, equipped with all the modern comforts, and of course, trimmed in blue.



Naturally, leisure always figures importantly in the French mind--especially during the summer, and the festival was full of lovely ideas for repose in the garden. What lovelier way to enjoy your heavenly blue hydrangeas than from this antique chaise longue, for example.




The festival was brimming with wonderful garden decorating ideas and inspirations. The blue theme was expressed everywhere, sometimes as simply as with the blue-painted pots of an herb vendor (right), a perfect lesson in how something utterly easy and a bit bold can transform an otherwise humdrum composition.
Almost as elementary was the striking but actually rudimentary blue-painted planter box (below).





The theme of blue gave a visual rhythm to the entire festival setting that reminded me of perpetuating a color repeat in the perennial border. In contrast to the bright blue planters were subtler variations on the theme, such as the tasteful juxtaposition of bluestone, blue hydrangeas, and a massive blue-gray zinc planter (just visible at the right edge of the frame below).






Floral art was immune neither from the color blue nor from the free-spirited creativity that reigned at the L'Art du Jardin festival. At the stand of Madame Figaro magazine, a blue artichoke blossom (that's right, the artichoke is a giant thistle bud) combined with simple field flowers and grasses such as nigella and foxtail to in an elegant arrangement adorning a door post.







Whimsy, innovation, and humor were around every corner. Garden art was created using cast-offs and junk, such as the potshard personnage smiling from among the blue flowers. And in the garden created by Elle magazine, a giant watering can served as the "spring" for a recirculating stream that flowed through a blue-grey zinc gutter throughout the garden. Note the clever use of moss to prop the watering can at an angle.


















The thrifty soul of the French gardener hates to throw anything away, and loves if possible to transform junk into beauty. Here, old window frames are propped against each other to create an impromptu decorative, charmingly funky greenhouse for an assortment of (blue-)flowering plants. Missing panes are transformed from liability into advantage by allowing plants to billow and through through the gaps.



This year's L'Art du Jardin festival was a fantastic opportunity to really absorb the quixotic, independent, romantic, humorous, and above all, creative spirit that is uniquely "French gardening."

Share