A quartet of potagers part 2

The potagers at Villandry and Yeo Valley Organic Garden

You can see the four terraces of the garden from this viewpoint

This week I am kicking off with my visit to one of the most notable kitchen gardens in the world, with World Heritage Site status no less, the famous Villandry renaissance garden beside the River Loire, a few miles from Tours. And it didn’t disappoint.

First, a bit of history

Chateau Villandry was built during the 16^th century around an old fort, which is notable for being the place where King Henry II of England conceded defeat to King Philip II of France in 1189 and agreed that his son Richard would become heir to the throne of England and marry Philip’s daughter. [This area is full of English medieval history. If you are fan of the film the Lion in Winter - Eleanor of Aquitaine,  Henry II and Richard I are all entombed in Fontevrand Abbey, an hour away].  

The chateau was confiscated during the revolution and in 1906 was bought by Joachim Carvallo and his wife the heiress Ann Coleman. They restored the chateau and created the gardens. It is still owned by the Carvallo family and each year it receives more than 350,000 visitors.

A tour of the garden

This garden was designed to be viewed from above, so the starting point of a tour around this garden is the high terrace where you can see the garden as it was intended, from above.  

The gardens extend over 9 hectares and comprise four terraces.  The upper terrace is home to one of the newest gardens, the Jardin du Soleil (sun garden) that was created in 2008 and is more informal in style with yellows dominating. The Jardin d’Eau (water garden) occupies the third terrace and steps lead down to the Jardin d’Ornament which is home to lots of topiary and box hedges, knot gardens plus the herb garden. And finally, the Potager Decoratif, filled with vegetables and fruit trees.

The view of the potager from the roof of the original fortress

The Potager

The potager covers just over a hectare and it is divided into 9 areas, each subdivided into smaller beds, and the gardeners create different geometric motifs using vegetables and ornamentals. The colours are chosen very carefully to create a chequerboard effect, for example, there are Blue Solaise leeks, red and white cabbages, chard, beetroot, etc.

Sign listing the different elements to create this chequerboard effect

Each bed is planted up precisely and maintained through the season

This formal style of planting dates back to Medieval times, when monks liked to create shapes with plants, especially crosses. The Italians also favoured a formal style of planting, so by the 16^th century, these styles had fused into what we now know as the ornamental kitchen garden. The current Villandry design, drawn by Joachim Carvallo 100 years ago, is based on the plans of Villandry’s Renaissance kitchen garden.

Keeping these gardens at their best for the thousands of visitors is, as you can imagine, a mammoth job. There are two plantings, the first planted out in March and removed in June and the second which is planted in June and remains until November. Around 40 different edible crops are used along with many ornamentals, with half of the 115,000 plants being raised on site.

And keeping this all looking pristine is a team of just 10 full time gardeners – I was expecting there to be more, given the extent and style of the gardens.

The chateau has been built around the original fortress

Box hedging

There are 30 km of box hedging here, trimmed twice a year!!!  It’s a huge task. But what about about box tree moth (pyrale de buis) and box blight (Cylindrocladium buxicola) I hear you ask? And it was my first thought too. Box tree moth (Cydalima perspectalis) was first reported in Alsace, France in 2008 and is now present across the country, including the Loire. The warmer temperatures associated with climate change have speed up their spread, and with fewer frosts, the caterpillars survive over winter.

Some of the many box hedges in the garden

It’s a real threat to the structure of the garden so the gardeners really have to be on their A game. I thought the hedges looked healthy, but there were a few places where replacements had been made and some where I felt there had been some die back which was masked by moss growing on the dead box stems.

There have been box tree moth outbreaks in the garden and for a while the hedges were sprayed regularly with Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis). This was not a great option as its not specific to the moth but will kill all caterpillars. Now, the garden has moved to organic management and all pesticides have been eliminated and the gardeners are using biocontrols, such as parasitic insects and nematodes.

Box is such an important element of many formal French gardens, especially Villandry and Marqueyssac in the Dordogne, so controlling these outbreaks will be critical.

Yeo Valley Organic Garden

My final potager couldn’t be more different. Yeo Valley Organic Garden  lies close to the Chew Reservoir, just to the south of Bristol. I was there a couple of weeks ago to give a talk as part of the Organic September celebrations. The garden, which extends to just over 6 acres, is one of the few in the UK that is certified organic and is inspected annually by the Soil Association.

While I can’t deny that Villandry was spectacular, I didn’t get inspired or see anything new. Yeo Valley, on the other hand, is a garden that continues to inspire me, and I rarely visit without coming away with at least one new idea.

Yeo Valley: top Left clockwise: hop covered arch looking back along kitchen garden to cafe, polyculture bed, beets, erigeron in the beds, malabar spinach in the greenhouse and a newly planted bed,

The beds in the kitchen garden are planted with a mix of vegetables and flowers (erigeron, marigolds, verbena, borage and more) to bring in the pollinators and natural predators, and I like that the crops are well mixed up too, in true polyculture style. Nearby, the greenhouse is full of chillis, tomatoes and pots of Malabar spinach.  I may try this as I usually grow it outside, and this year it really hasn’t got away. The garden is run as sustainably as possible, with the willow and hazel grown in the garden. Organic seeds are supplied by Tamar Seeds. And, as you would expect, the composting area is extensive to ensure the garden has enough compost.

A couple of take away ideas from this garden:

·         I loved that the brassicas where undersown with clover – a living mulch that fixes nitrogen and suppresses weeds.

You can just see the clover growing under this bed of kale - there are rows of different varieties which adds diversity

·         The use of straw under the pots on the greenhouse bench, I assume to hold moisture for longer

Pots of chilli plants are placed on a layer of straw on a greenhouse bench

And diverting away from the kitchen garden, momentarily, I must mention that I spotted several wonderful specimens of Salvia confertiflora  in the herbaceous beds so I wonder if they  are dug up and relocated for winter or left in the ground heavily mulched – I need to find out.

Salvia confertiflora in the herbaceous bed

And I’ll end my tour of Yeo Valley with a glimpse of their glorious annual flower beds that are located in front of the greenhouse. These beds were sown back in spring, cut back in early July and then oversowed with a mix of Ammi, cornflower, California poppy (Eschscholzia), echium, phacelia, poppies, toadflax, and wild carrot.

One of the two annual flower beds at Yeo Valley in mid September

Yeo Valley Organic Garden is a RHS partner garden and is open three days a week from April to the end of October.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about these four potagers. I would love to know if you have a favourite potager?

Happy gardening

Sally

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