Le Jardin d'Angelique

A rose garden brimming with nostalgia...or tears.

06/10/2004
Le Jardin d'Angelique
It wasn't the paradoxically gray, rainy skies the June day we visited this garden that suffused it with melancholy. A sense of sadness, of regret, of not-too-distant tears pervades the Jardin d'Angelique even on sunny days. This serenely beautiful garden was created by the owners in the memory of their dead daughter, their beloved Angelique. Although this sad event happened many years ago, it seems to pervade every square inch of the plantings, and it is certainly etched in every line on her father's face as he works among his roses.

He seems bent down by the fact of his daughter's untimely death, and although he is gentle and retiring, you have a hard time imagining him smiling. I know that the death of a child is the worst thing most of us can imagine, and I suppose creating and caring for a garden in a dead child's memory does just that--keeps the memory directly before your eyes day in and day out.

Nevertheless, this lush manor house garden is one of Normandy's most beautiful. It began as a planting of roses, and evolved over the years into a composite and complex landscape garden. Behind the house is a white garden planted in classic French style, with geometric parterres edged in boxwood and a central statue. The beds are planted with a profusion ofwhite roses, white-flowered perennials, and silver-foliaged plants. It is all-in-all an excellent example of a white garden--an English invention if ever there was one-- à la française.

There's plenty of color in the rest of the garden, but it's in a distinctly soft, pastel range of blues, purples, whites, and every shade of rose imaginable. Here and there is just a touch of pale yellow to provide relief to a palette that might just be a touch too saccharine without it. Color contrasts don't get any stronger in this garden than a juxtaposition of lamium and lady's mantle (left).

The garden makes excellent use of color echoes, and doesn't exploit only flowers for its effects. Foliage plays an important role in providing both color harmonies and textural contrasts. I was delighted to find my old American friend, redbud 'Forest Pansy' (right) contributing to the gentle play of colors in this garden.

Tranquillity manifests in a myriad ways in Angelique's garden. A tiny stream (photo below) wends its way through the plantings, here and there falling in a miniature waterfall that trickles soothingly in your ears. Its borders are thoughtfully planted with a brocade of moisture-loving plants whose harmonious composition adds to the feeling of repose this garden gives you.

Shade also plays a big part in imparting a sense of quiet and repose. There are many finely nuanced plant combinations among the shady borders to inspire you. Wonderful advantage has been taken of contrasting delicate and heavy bold leaf forms, such as ferns and hosta, and leavening and lightening the mix with a spatter of luminous blossoms, as is the case with the feverfew in the photo at right.

Angelique's garden also makes the most of the 'garden rooms' concept. Paths turn and wind gently, keeping what's lying ahead just out of sight and creating a gentle suspense. Taller woody plants take the center of the borders, effectively screening your view from straying into other parts of the garden while you are on a particular path. Artful use of bridges and gates (below) entices you to explore further and further.

Throughout the garden, you are given opportunities to be quiet and reflective. Many chairs and benches punctuate the planted spaces, without ever seeming to overpopulate them, thanks to the skillful delimitation of the various 'rooms'. Although the plantings are lush and full of colorful flowers, this is not a garden you would ever characterize as exuberant. Rather, it is serene, tranquil, reflective, meditative, and ever evocative of someone who is no longer there.

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