Full French Country Garden Tour & Plans for the future – A new approach | Episode 1

Warmer days have arrived and we have come out of hibernation here with spring arriving in south west France. Days like this call for one thing only; a master garden plan for our French garden. We have learned from our mistakes of the past, and are ready to create a beautiful, integrated French garden with beautiful flowers, vegetables and herbs all growing together harmoniously. This is going to be a big challenge but one that will reward us many times over. Come with us as we give you a tour of the current garden and show you our plans for the French garden of our dreams.

☕️Keep us caffeinated (this really, really helps, thank you!!): https://www.buymeacoffee.com/growinginfrance
🔗Connect with us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growinginfrance
💌Get in Touch: growinginfrance@gmail.com

MUSIC:
– Epidemic Sound | https://share.epidemicsound.com/ovq5se

GEAR:
– DJI Osmo Pocket 3 – Creator Combo | https://amzn.to/47AsA1w
– GoPro HERO10 Black | https://amzn.to/3Nahmc0

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] we had a week without rain we were able to mow the Lawns for the first time in 4 months and today the sun is shining spring is here so we thought that we’d give you a tour of the garden we’re going to start in the B Garden this is kind of like our secret garden because not many people know it exists it’s kind of tucked away here behind the mees deit since we moved in almost 5 years ago I think the biggest impact we’ve had here on the back Garden is um ripping things out out we had to widen this Creek because all the runoff from the village to make its way to the cherant comes here behind our house Y and the first winter we were here it flooded and it was only about this wide and about this deep and it could not handle the volume of water so we dug it wider and deeper and banked up the edge with all the soil that we dug out and that saved us the next winter we did not flood so we actually had a huge clump of bamboo here that needed to come out to make way for widening the creek um and in its place we have planted a hedge and I bought these plants they were tiny 2 years ago yeah two years ago they were this big I didn’t even know what they were and they have grown so fast and it’s so lovely to see them In Bloom and we can imagine in another 3 or 4 years is that we’re actually going to have a head here and it’s going to be all colorful and pretty and it’s going to block out the situation which is our neighbors um they’re actually a lovely family we don’t fully understand the situation but I think it’s where the house has been passed down too many times to too many people and now it’s split between too many family members that can’t agree on what to do with it so it’s abandoned which is such a shame nobody lives in there it’s a beautiful house it’s Amon deetra like ours and it’s just getting completely taken over by the garden our first year we were here they came and they cleared out the whole garden and cut down all the brambles and everything and we were like oh wonderful they take care of it that was 3 years ago so now their Garden is coming over to our garden they’re a lovely family though yeah and it’s it’s great because we do get to eat all the berries off those brambl we make Bramble pie so some of the little plants didn’t make it they had to survive flooding drought so the ones that have survived I mean I’m so thrilled that they’re here um and we can easily just fill in these little gaps and weed it needs weeding everything needs weeding we built this Garden during lockdown we were you know locked down like everybody was and we were desperate to be growing our own food and so we obviously couldn’t go out and and get everything that we wanted to to get so we actually took down there’s a second floor up on one part of the bar that we don’t use nobody uses the cats go up there and that’s it and so all of the posts uh they were the the beams that were running across and then all of the planks around the edges they were actually the floor board in there we took them out we built this actually it used to be twice as high and then we filled it with a couple of trees that we had cut down basically Chopped all of them up and put them in as a base it’s called hugle culture growing like on a b base of of wood which like holds in the moisture and and all of that good stuff and then we put all the soil on top and we dug the soil from over there over there that’s right remember yeah oh my God wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow yeah bringing the oil over and we have added to it with heaps of compost and stuff over time this was what 3 years ago now yeah so this has been a gotten for 3 years as it all settled as the wood rotted away we took off the top two layers around the outside repaired some that were falling apart cuz obviously it’s not made to be outside you know which kind of had to work with what we had yeah and it did work like it was it was great we’ve got so many epic veggies out of here but I mean the main problem is that we don’t come out here naturally like it’s not a part of our life and you can’t you can’t see the garden from inside it doesn’t gardening I think it’s it’s really easy if you spend a few minutes a day yeah you know if you sp come out with your coffee in the morning and you spend 5 minutes and just pull a few weeds or see that there’s bugs or see that there’s a disease starting on one of your plants you know um and that’s how you garden with it feeling like a joy and integrating into your life but this always felt like I’m going to go to the Garden you know like it would had to be such a big decision and we had to yeah you know find time in our day for it where it really should just be a place where you come and spend a few minutes to take care of your plants um and to harvest what’s growing you know because we’ve let cets get enormous we’ve let berries rot like just because we’re not out here every day yeah um so this is a huge change that we’re making mentally and with the design of our garden so we really did designed this Garden to be the pot like only containing vegetables and berries food and be the place to come just for those things but actually what I’d like to change about this approach is everything really and have the vegetables and the berries and the food be integrated into the garden as a whole so there’s flowers and and vegetables and fruit uh all growing together mhm creating a beautiful space that you want to be all the time we’re moving this we’re going to move all the soil cuz man yeah the soil is amazing like by now we have put so much yeah love and compost into it that it is just phenomenal like whatever we plant here does grow really well I mean these have gone all winter you can tell that we don’t come out here like as soon as it got cold and the food wasn’t producing we just bailed so moving this is going to be is going to be a big a big challenge um but I think yeah oh a big challenge yeah yeah it’s going to be a challenge yes um you have a digger I do yeah you think a digger can help or definitely yeah going to use your muscles the Digger is almost as big as my muscles so I think it will probably help that’s not even a joke um we have the world either a tiny dier You’ got really big muscles what are you saying babe look when you see the Digger you’ll know so this is all going to come down that’s right yeah we’re going to have to say goodbye to our lockdown pot yeah um and I think it’s going to be nice to bring something a bit more permanent and something a bit more integrated into our lives we’re going to bring it out the front yeah so let’s go let’s go around there’s more there’s always more in this house there’s always more at this property more to do more to do Jack used a a shutter for the gate which I just love I mean it is a really cute little py it is I think we did really well yeah what happened to the mowing what what’s up with this this yeah this uh wasn’t actually my decision this was the kids they requested that I leave a section of the Lord unmowed so that the bugs and the birds have somewhere to hang out the bugs and the birds have plenty of places to hang out they do but I think it’s kind of sweet I tried to give it a nice shape and we saved a bit with the most flowers wild do here quite a rich history this pile of rocks has when we moved in there was actually an ouse here which was the original toilet for the mesra cuz there is no internal Plumbing in there uh and I mean there wasn’t any Plumbing out here either it just went straight into the creek but we took the ouse down cuz we didn’t need it and we did need the stone we used the stone to rebuild the wall at the front of the house so the stones that are here are not even from the ouse these are actually the stones that were the interior wall of our house that have now come and moved back around here so you just love moving rocks don’t you yeah I really get a kick out of moving rocks like a really hot day there’s something about moving really heavy objects from one place to another I don’t know what it is think you’re a bit crazy you might be right what is exciting though not the Rocks but all the nittles I used to be absolutely horrified at the fact that most of our garden was Nettles um but it’s one of those things that you either have to embrace completely or forever be at War and I chose to embrace it completely to the point where we make the best nettle pesto out of it and we eat that actually we could probably start now this is the best stuff to harvest um you can make uh fertilizer for your indoor plants or even your seedlings as they’re growing out of it it’s absolutely incredible um so now we actually leave patches to cultivate nals so many people hate bamboo and will warn you explicitly to not put it in your garden but I love it in our garden and we have so many many uses for it the sticks in the vegetable garden or just how many times have you used a piece of bamboo I’ve used bambo for everything I’ve even used it to unblock the old SE we have neighbors walking past being like can I have some of your bamboo so we like supplying the village with bamboo sticks and yes we have plenty come help yourself so this is our bamboo forest and we have the lovely sound of the creek trickling under the road here and another entrance to our property which we have literally never used um have you oh you used it when you were carrying bamboo across the road hey yeah look at this this is amazing look how beautiful it is I love coming out here yeah it’s like really nice it’s like a ween Garden it is what I really want to do actually is suspend a hammock out over the creek like in that corner yeah wouldn’t that just be so nice come sit in the shade listen to the creek yeah in all your spare time all my I got so many jobs for you to do like there is going to be no no hammock time ham time no I’ve got lots of jobs to do as well so no hammock time for you like yeah there is just no hammock time and then one day we’ll share a hammock or hammock Time Can’t Touch This no you can’t touch can’t touch this you can put a hamic there what you want oh my God that would be so nice would that okay yeah hammock can you say hammock time again one thing I’m so sad about I like it actually hurts my heart is this cherry tree so I mean it must just be so old now but we the first summer we were here we got a handful of cherries and that was the last time I’d ever produced fruit but we’re going to plant new cherry trees lots of them hey yeah our front garden so this is where we’re going to be moving Our Lives um and Landscaping and I think we’re going to be bringing back some features that have been taken down over time that we’ve lost so what I really want is a beautiful path entryway from The Pedestrian gate on the road right up to the front doors of the meon deit there used to be a circle here you can see the ground is a little bit different I guess this tree used to be a lot smaller which we want to bring back so we have the a path leading from The Pedestrian gate right up to the steps of the mees de with a beautiful feature in the middle and that beautiful feature is going to be me Lush can you hold a bowl or turn you into a bird bath I just instead I actually would be so happy yeah in summer yeah but not in Winter you have to bring me inside bath in one hand wine in the other yeah no what’s the what’s the feature going to be our garden is going to be here so it’s going to be a fully diverse Garden everything from lavender to tomato plants and everything in between I have got such a Clear Vision in my mind and I just can’t wait to bring it to life hey when are we starting well if you can you can draw out the circle go yeah let’s go let’s get my plan Let’s do let’s grow all right let’s [Laughter] grow shame does that mean we have to say goodbye to the bull so it was our daughter’s first birthday and since she’s our French daughter she was born here we needed to have a Paton court at her birthday for all of our friends to play absolutely um and so we had actually just cut down some trees at the back so we used them as the Border um I built this with your dad and that was super fun and it actually worked out perfectly because if you have if you have somewhere to play for ton all of the French people they came they had their balls in their cars they all have them with them oh sweet patonk time then and we did it and it was great we spent half the afternoon playing here the kids the grown-ups um I think it’s been used since no the baby comes and puts Stones down her top that’s true yeah um we have to relocate this bench though I’m really proud of this bench there’s a lovely bench all the bench what all the bench it’s very benchy look at me benching it is actually just so beautiful just sitting here looking at the house having mean the sound of the river in the background all these birds gosh they’re just are so many different types of birds aren’t there this really is the perfect place where I have the seating area on the design on the plan it’s going to be here should we get the plan let’s get the plan okay so this was my original design um when our main Garden was going to be at the back but now since adapted it also to be a little bit more realistic for the fact that our kids love running around on lawn and this design was to actually completely get rid of lawn this was going to be the only lawn area um just because of how much work it takes to maintain um we going to have lots of gravel this is the more integrated design where we still have the beautiful path leading you from The Pedestrian gate to the front of the meeson and here we’re going to have archers over the whole way for growing all sorts of things over flowers or pumpkins cucumbers beans this is a gravel path around here and this is a big vegetable flower and another one in the center here and off to the side here we’ve got a seating area and here along the fence because it is quite shaded I think we’re just going to put Plants bushes flowers in here it’s not the best place for vegetables I think this side here because it gets shade from the oak tree will be a perfect place for salad greens and things like that and over on this side it’s going to be tomatoes and herbs because it gets the most full sand all day now this plan is omitting to things which are currently in our garden and that is the huge plum tree and the other evergreen tree which I think they need to come out what least evergreen tree to start with because it lives about here what do you think about the trees yeah it is so sad but we’re going to be replacing them with productive trees P more cherries that sounds like a good plan yeah so that’s my plan you ready to start you ready to build yeah um build outside for a change that’ll be nice yeah in the fresh a do you want to um uh draw some circles on the lawn for me oh now we’re going to go sure yes let’s go let’s [Music] go n