Les Jardins de Barbirey

A sleeping beauty of a garden lost in the countryside near Dijon.

07/20/2006
Les Jardins de Barbirey
A thunderstorm was just tailing off into a gentle rain as I finally found the gardens of Barbirey. I had finally found the village of Barbirey-sur-Ouche, a tiny place, its old stones peeking out from among thousands of rose blossoms. Some of the most splendid old roses I'd ever seen were foaming in waves of full bloom everywhere I looked. Not a soul was to be seen, and the village was too small to have even a shop. I rolled down my window to see more clearly, erasing the rain spatters, and breathed in a heavy scent of rose thick on the humid air.

Looking for a sign of the garden, I found one. It said "Les Jardins de Barbirey" with two arrows pointing in opposite directions. One arrow pointed to the town hall; obviously the garden wasn't there. I felt exactly like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, when the scarecrow tells her "They went thataway" and crosses his arms, pointing in opposite directions. I drove in the direction of the arrow pointing down the street away from the town hall, and within a hundred yards found myself leaving town, staring at a sign indicating the gardens of Barbirey were now behind me.

Doing a U-turn, I drove oh-so-slowly back the way I had come, stopping and rubbing my eyes. I had now left Oz for Wonderland, because in front of me was a pale blue gateway I hadn't noticed before, with discreet letters announcing the garden. Curiouser and curiouser, I cautiously nudged my car through the gate, crept into the immaculate gravel courtyard beyond, and turned off the ignition.

The rain had slowed a bit and I got out of the car, closing its door behind me as quietly as I could. Somehow, I felt as if I had slipped through the doorway of an enchanted castle. Through the scrim of raindrops, an arched stone gate framed a tangle of delphinium in every imaginable shade of blue. No view of a garden could have been more tantalizing. I looked behind me, searching for a door marked as an official entrypoint, where I might purchase a ticket to this enchantment. Seeing nothing and no one, I had just stepped under the stone arch when I heard a harsh voice behind me. I turned around, and, under the circumstances, seemed to see a witch pursuing me like the proverbial bat out of hell, waving her arms and shrieking. Her shrill words finally registered. On se gare pas dans la cour!" she shreiked in apparent panic or threat, I wasn't sure which. "One doesn't park in the courtyard!"

I apologized, explaining that I had meant no harm, was simply trying to find the garden, and adding that no injunction against entering and parking was posted. "Yet no one ever parks in the courtyard," shrilled the garden witch, who wore a stiff helmet of bleached blond hair. She was clearly implying that I was the first person ever to have such impudence. Since I had already offered a very profuse and courteous apology, this comment made me angry. Curtly, I asked just where I was supposed to park, turning away toward my guilty vehicle. A la mairie! she shrieked (at the town hall). "Everyone knows that!" trailed after me as I slowly drove out into the street, thinking this had to be the most unwelcome I'd ever been made to feel in any supposedly public garden.

I parked at the mairie. and hesitated, wondering if I really wanted to face that most unpleasant woman again. But the rectangle of delphinium appeared in my mind. And I had driven over an hour to get here from Vézelay. I squared my shoulders and walked back toward the forbidding gardens of Barbirey.

I found the welcoming witch behind the blue door of one of the lovely buildings framing the courtyard. She shook her head at me. "I'm not sure we can let you visit the garden in this weather. They've had hail the size of tennis balls nearby and we would be responsible if..."

I had now had enough. "Madame," I cut her short, "I am here to evaluate this garden for possible inclusion in an American Public Television program." (This was actually true.) I looked at her sternly, searching for the effect of this announcement. Sure enough, I could see several calculations cross through her brain as she forced her features into a rictus of a smile. Practically fawning now, she quickly changed her tune, pressing a map of the property on me and offering advice of the best path to take for photographs. I thanked her briefly (she was oblivious to the irony in my tone) and left to finally pass under the archway into the delphiniums and beyond. Whew! Escaped the guard at the gate and free at last...Come on, come with me, we've got this garden all to ourselves!

Behind my back is the château, and before me lies an enormous and sumptuous flowering potager (vegetable garden) in two levels, separated by a high stone retaining wall. From the edge of the wall, I have a view over the lower level, and beyond it, a lake with swans floating lazily among the clouds reflected on its surface. The potager is laid out in a grid of symmetrical parterres, bursting with vegetables, fruits, and flowers.

At one end of the upper level is an orangerie (visible just below church in photo at right). I peek inside to see it is now transformed into a potting shed fit for a princess. Behind it the steeple of the town church signals the presence of the village outside the closed world of the château. The high stone wall separating the garden from the village has several deep niches, which frame variously an antique, woven beehive; an enormous pot of scented geranium... When I rub its small, velvety leaves, a cloud of fragrance floats into the humid air.

Before following the path that leads from the far end of the potager into the remainder of the garden, I pause. Looking back at this vast cloister of parterres, we are transported back in time. I imagine this garden as it must have been a couple of hundred years ago, when its expanse was managed entirely without machinery. The to-and-fro of wheelbarrows loaded with tools and manure, or harvests of fruits and vegetables for the bustling, steaming kitchens of the château.

I can almost see the ghosts of this beehive of workers flitting among the paths. The use of grids of various grains--oats, wheat--in the parterres in this garden transports me back to a time when this potager supplied nearly all the vegetal nourishment of the château.

But at its edge, a shady twisting path lures me on to discover the rest of the garden. I plunge under dripping foliage and find myself entering a curving, wrought-iron tonnelle or pergola. Painted red, it leads my steps inexorably along the edge of a woodland. To my left, screened by a tangle of shrubs, is a meadow. I continue on and come upon a small woodland pool. Its looking-glass surface reflects the somber tree trunks framing a bit of sky floating in a living mosaic of duckweed. Not a sound breaks the silence around me as I stare into this illusory world.

Now I begin to emerge from the dark, damp woods. The gurgle of running water hails my emergence into a meadow. To my right, I find a weir straddling the clear water of a stream at its confluence with another. One of the two--I'm not sure which--is rather whimsically named the 'Gironde'--which of course is also the name of the mighty river that empties into the Atlantic at Bordeaux. The other is the Ouche, and the confluence of their two valleys is at the heart of the grounds of the château.

My path climbs a bit from this valley of waters and I re-enter the border of a woods. Nestled among lush ferns and camouflaged by cushions of emerald moss, some rough stone steps lead up a hill. Naturally, I take them, and find myself looking over the brink of the hill on a peculiar outcropping of ochre-colored sandstone. Aha! The Guardian at the Gate had mentioned an old quarry. That must be it.

I descend and follow another path to explore this curious place. Undoubtedly, it was here that stone was quarried to construct the various buildings on the property. At the far end of this stony grotto, the path dead-ends and I have to double back.

I take a different fork in the path which leads me to my last discovery--a rock garden, where diminuitive alpine and succulent plants nestle among the stones of a natural outcropping. Although this garden is undoubtedly at its most colorful in late spring, there are still some plants in flower here and there.

The path now leads to a small bridge, which I cross to find myself looking back across a series of meadows at the château. These soft grasslands hold a small lake in their embrace, where swans and ducks float silently among the clouds reflected in its surface. The château, peeking down through the trees, seems to stand guard over this quiet world, protecting its timeless ways from the intrusion of the present.

Les Jardins de Barbirey, 2 rue du Château, 21410 Barbirey-sur Ouche. Tel: +33 (0)3 80 49 08 81, www.barbirey.com
Open 30 April-31 May weekends and holidays from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m; from 1 June through 31 August daily except Monday from 2:00 to 7:00 p.m.; from 1 September to 1 November, weekends and holidays from 2:00 to 6:00.
Entry fee 6 euros.

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