Le Domaine du Rayol

Mediterranean climates of the world gathered together in one garden.

06/13/2007
Le Domaine du Rayol
An extraordinary garden nestles at the foot of the steep Maures massif less than an hour's drive from St. Tropez. Here, at Le Rayol-Canadel-sur-Mer, a former family seaside domaine has been transformed into a collection of landscape gardens representing the regions of the world which enjoy a Mediterranean climate.

Perhaps the best way to introduce this unusual garden is through its history. In 1910, Alfred Theodore Courmes built his retirement home here on a wild promontory of land overlooking the Bay of Fig Trees. On the terrain surrounding his home, he built a vast pleasure garden whose central feature was a massive pergola of classical design.

By 1925, the nearby town had become a popular seaside resort, and the Courmes sold their home and built another at the far end of the property. Their former home was transformed into a hotel.

In 1940, Mme. Courmes resold the property to a well-known aeronautical engineer, Henri Potez, who owned aircraft factories in the Somme. With his family, he took shelter from the war at Rayol. He restored the buildings, and built a dramatic staircase that stretched from the pergola all the way down to the sea. His staff of ten gardeners assured that the garden experienced its heyday.

But then, with the war over, the domaine became just a summer residence. It slowly fell into neglect and finally abandon by the end of the 1960's. It was acquired by the Coast Conservancy in 1989, ensuring that its precious flora and fauna as well as the last vestiges of unspoiled oceanfront cliffs in the area would be preserved. The Conservancy hired eminent landscape architect Gilles Clément to conceive a design for the site evoking the flora and landscapes of the diverse "Mediterranean" climates of the world. And the former garden of the domaine was transformed into a series of landscape gardens dedicated to not only the Mediterranean Basin, but also southwest California, the South African Cape, central Chile and southern Australia.

As we walked up the path to the garden's entrance, my eye was caught be a tree with absolutely spectacular bark. The thin, smooth cinnamon brown exterior layer split and peeled delicately to reveal a stunning, pistachio green dermis (photo right). I'm pretty sure this was Arbutus menziesii or the madrone of coastal northern California. It was in the California garden, but sadly, the tree was not labeled.

We entered the majestic building that was the former home of the Courmes and which now houses the offices, boutique, and restaurant of the public garden. The view from the terrace out back is spectacular. The sparkling blue of the Mediterranean seems limitless, and the humped silhouette of Porquerolle Island rides its horizon.
Beyond and below the terrace stretched the series of exquisite landscape gardens of the "Mediterraneans"--the diverse regions of the world blessed with this particular climate. The gardens are modeled on natural environments from these different regions, and are in a constant state of evolution. Their design and management are guided by three precepts: respect for the natural cycle of the plants, especially the herbaceous speciesm, creating what Clément terms "gardens in motion"; minimal water usage; and choice of plants compatible with the soil and microclimate of each site in order to minimize maintenance. While the garden is not organic, it is purportedly managed without environmentally disruptive pesticides.

The first garden we encountered was dedicated to the flora of the Canary Islands. Striking red-black euphorbias or aeoniums contrasted with the golden grasses of a coastal scrubland. I can't be more precise about the plants' identities as I had to rely solely on a brochure map which named a few key species in each area. But as I quickly discovered, not a label was to be found in the entire garden. It's designer did not want the visitor "distracted" from the ambience of the garden by labeling. Call me an inveterate Anglo-Saxon, but for me, being in the dark about the identity of the extraordinary plants in this splendid series of gardens was a serious shortcoming. And as the garden bills itself as "pedagogic," I couldn't help wondering in a cynical moment if it wasn't to force you to attend the very expensive teaching seminars it hosts that labels were omitted. At any rate, this omission is my only criticism of an otherwise extraordinary garden.

While most of the plants were unfamilar to me, I was able to identify this spectacular cork oak, thanks to having seen forests of this tree in Portugal and Corsica. In fact, the entire garden was filled with tableaux of sculptural plants and striking contrasts in forms and textures of branches, bark, and foliage.

In this regard, one of the most extraordinary parts of the garden was the section dedicated to plants of Chile and subtropical America.
A superb and artfully planted cactus collection rivaled those of similar plants I'd seen both in Oaxaca and in the Jardin Exotique of Monaco. What sets the gardens of the Domaine de Rayol distinctly apart from most botanic gardens is that it is first and foremost a landscape garden. I tried to suppress my frustration about the lack of labels and simply enjoy the gardens as they were intended!

But my label anguish returned as we came upon a brilliant collection of flowering plants in the heart of the garden. Although I recognized the genus Aloe among them, as well as some flowering Delospermas, I wish that I could identify for you in more detail the splendid plants in this part of the South African garden.

Even if you have no particular interest in gardening, I guarantee you would enjoy strolling through the different ambiences of this jewel of a coastal garden. You may get a kick--as I did--from imagining the place in its heyday as a private domain. If you walk straight down from the pergola to the sea, you'll come upon the Rayollet,a beach "cabin" that most of us would die of happiness to spend the rest of our lives in--in short, a vestige of a more elegant era. But whatever your predilection--dreaming, gardening, or both--you'll find the Domaine du Rayol a place of inspiration.

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