Work on the “abri” did indeed start in July when Arnaud came to erect the stone pillars. It was an anxious few days. We had cheerfully assured all concerned that there was solid rock/concrete under the dallage on the terrace, but actually we had no idea. I watched anxiously, fearful that the terrace would not bear the weight and that the pillars would sink without trace. Happily they are still standing. Indeed for several weeks, while we waited for Thierry to come and build the roof, they stood in splendid isolation, creating a classical feel.

We had two bits of bad news in July.

Firstly Trevor and Heidi announced their retirement, sooner than planned as they had managed to sell their house almost as soon as they put it on the market, typically property can take a couple of years to shift. They introduced us to Steve and Mandy, who took on the caretaking and pool maintenance tasks, and are a welcome addition to the team. I will however be eternally grateful to Trevor & Heidi, whose persistent optimism and practical good sense saw us through some difficult times in the early years, and I miss our afternoons listening to their stories as we downed a few beers in the summer sunshine.

Then Dominique, who had persuaded me to dismiss the previous meadow mower and let her take the hay, announced that son Florin was no longer willing to make the not inconsiderable journey to come and cut and bale the meadow. Given the distance it was understandable, and he did at cut it down for us that year. But it left us with a problem, or, as my one time boss would have said, an opportunity!

Sarah visited in July, and later in the month the wine tasters came, not to taste but to see the Tour de France which passed through Bergerac that summer. I missed the arrival of the Tour on the Friday, having been detailed to collect the last of our party from the airport. I don’t feel I missed much as the rain was torrential. The drive to the airport was treacherous as the main road had been closed for the race and the detour was down a flooded one track road, but everyone else got soaked. Then the sun came out and on the Saturday we toured the winery at Tour de Verdots with the vigneron, picnicked in a meadow and then watched the time trials from Bergerac to Perigeux in blazing sunshine.

As we left at the end of the month Thierry was roofing the abri.

Back in Scotland I started thinking about the meadow. A year or two previously I had culled an article from The Garden magazine  describing the Sussex Prairie Garden, a Piet Oudolf inspired informal meadow, I loved it and kept the piece thinking that although the scale was vast some of the planting ideas might be useful. Now that no-one was claiming a right to the hay off our meadow I began to wonder if we might create something similar, but on a smaller scale, in the flat area beyond the Gravel Garden and behind the garage. Tentatively, since I felt I had demanded a lot from her in the past couple of years, I sent the article off to Jan at Jardins du Perigord, asking if she would be interested, her response was immediate and enthusiastic, I don’t think either of us knew what we were letting ourselves in for! Back in France in September we walked the space together, I had been uncertain as to whether to plant the area at the eastern extremity, towards our boundary with our neighbours, or to the western extremity of the plateau, which would be encompassed in the view from the back kitchen.

We agreed to do both.

By late August the Gravel Garden was looking fantastic,

but it still lacked an item of “garden furniture” for which a space had been left at the time of initial planting.

The stake marked the point at which I had decided to install an armillary sphere sundial. This had to be made to order for the latitude. After searching the Internet I had contracted with Nick Canfield, conveniently situated in Wales, to build one to order. Nick is a perfectionist. He took the job on in the summer of 2013, and was finally happy with the result in the spring of 2014, when the sundial arrived in France. Our next problem was to find a plinth on which to place it. Peter located a stonemason who was advertising his work around the corner from us, but proved to be living some distance away in St Cyprien. He turned up, on his bike, at the third time of asking, and eventually quoted us some 2,000 Euros for the job, rather more than the cost of the sundial itself. Guess he didn’t want the job. By that time we had discovered Arnaud, of the abri pillars, who came in at a tenth of the price. The sundial went up in September .

I was also keen to replace the rather naff bird table on the lawn outside the kitchen window, our birds seem to find plenty to eat without our help and are not much interested in our offerings.

As with the “prisoner balls” I wanted something spherical to echo the box, and was attracted by the Fireballs that I found on the Internet. Most seemed to be made in the US, with associated delivery issues, but I eventually located a UK based artist, Andrew Gage, who agreed to make a Fireball to my specifications, and delivered, on time, that September. Not that delivery was not a challenge, these things are heavy. All credit to the lorry driver who made it up the drive and delivered to the edge of the stone platform, he almost got stuck in the meadow turning his lorry to depart.

Although we could burn logs or charcoal in it, due to burning restrictions in summer we have not yet done so, preferring to light it up at night with solar powered lights.

We also realised that the grass bordered runnel was the perfect home for the heron I had bought in Bergerac our first winter and had been trying to home ever since.

September also saw the re-planting of the iris beds I had cleared in the summer and I began to clear the narrow southern border in Walnut Terrace and planted some spring bulbs.

The northern border in  Walnut Terrace was causing some problems. Our soil is so stony that pebbles just kept rolling off the steep slope of the flowerbed, causing mowing problems in the lawn beneath. In October Nick & George built us a low retaining wall to contain the problem, it had the added benefit of making it look more like a flowerbed.

George also did sterling work collecting various piles of logs from previously fallen trees, which Guillaume had left stacked in the meadow, dragging them up to the woodpile and cutting them into manageable lengths.

Work began on the prairie garden in October

and Fabien also continued through the winter to construct the water feature. I ordered salvias and some other plants from Senteurs du Quercy for my new bed above the lower cave. Jan & I spent the winter discussing planting options for the new prairie.

My major task for February was the spring clearing of the Gravel Garden, cutting back the grasses and perennials from the previous year to make way for the spring growth. It took me a while that first year, I have become slicker since. Still I needed to be out of the house as M Perez the painter, or more accurately his mate, was finally persuaded to start on the task of painting hallway, sitting room and kitchen, which he had contracted for in 2012. He seems to prefer outdoor jobs!

In March we went skiing in Aspen. In our absence the garage wall was rendered, and when we got back in early April Liz had started on the trompe l’oeil.

We watched it evolve over the next few weeks, sympathising with her efforts to work on a south facing wall, with no shade, in unusually sunny weather for the time of year.

Te result was a triumph, converting an ugly view to a thing of beauty. She even managed to include portraits of the hoopoes, who visit in the spring and perch on top of the pigeonnier (just above our bedroom) to sing for their mates.

Susan & Peter visited again, this time it was warm enough to sit by the pool. Susan escorted me to Jardiland and talked me into some purchases for the stone circle, although I resisted her enthusiasm for a monkey puzzle tree, doubtful that it would enjoy our soil. We did acquire a Punica, which has grown well and has beautiful orange and white blossom, although, like the olives, I do not expect it to fruit in the local climate. A pair of Teucriums were added, a passing stranger shook his head doubtfully as he watched us loading them into the car,  observing that they were enthusiastic growers, as they have proved to be, but the have attractive foliage and blue flowers and don’t seem to mind hard pruning.

I also began to acquire white galets to top off the beds on each side of the angellos. This took a few trips as the bags were heavy, but the result is attractive and they do discourage weeds. The display from the Iris continued to improve.

By May the trompe l’oeil was finished

I succeeded in sourcing some solar powered globular lighting to echo the rounded shape of the box, dubbed by Peter “prisoner balls” in honour of the 1960s TV series.

The Acacia were in flower in the meadow

My new Iris were doing well

and the Gravel Garden was flourishing

In June Neil & Brenda came to visit and managed some impressive sightseeing. Brenda and I also spent a productive morning exploring the clothes stalls at the Thursday market! In between visitors I began to clear various clumps of iris on the slope below the upper terrace and around the bottom of the steps to the lower cave. I also started on the bank above the lower cave, I had thought of planting alpines as it is a steep slope below a “cliff face” but it is south facing and dry so I decided to try salvias which I hoped would withstand the conditions.

Inspired by our visit to Sandra & Allan the previous autumn, we also started to plan a shaded sitting area on the terrace, shaded outdoor seating being something the garden lacked. My tentative ideas were sensibly refined by Trevor & Heidi, who also found us Arnaud the stonemason to create the supporting pillars and persuaded Thierry, the roofer to do the woodwork and tiling. Work was scheduled for July.

 

The beginning of September was unseasonably cold, unfortunately for Gil, Susan & Peter, all of whom came to visit. Sitting by the pool was more of an ordeal than a pleasure. Happily it warmed up again later in the month when we spent a few days with Sandra & Allan, admiring their provencal view, olive trees and developing vineyard. We also discovered en route the wonderful Auberge de Vieux Puits in the Pays de l’Aude.

Back in Lalinde my plants from Pepinieres Filippi arrived and I planted up the now relatively weed free border in Walnut Terrace. I also planted white and yellow iris in the bed by the gate, unfortunately I omitted to remove the labels and they were nicked within days, the peach coloured ones I planted on the escarpment above the lower cave have survived. We also replaced the kitchen hot water tank, so thick with calcaire that it was barely heating enough water for a single washing up.

The carpenter appeared to repair the kitchen floor just before our departure, and exposed a vast colony of termites. Peter was sent off to obtain hydrochloric acid, but it rapidly became clear that this was an extensive problem, hard to know how extensive as the parquet extended in continuity through the kitchen, dining and sitting room areas. The carpenter departed leaving a much larger hole in the floor. Happily Heidi, pragmatic as ever, rescued me from despair and undertook to organize the inspection and treatment of the entire house. We decided to concrete and tile the floor in the kitchen, we had been considering tiling it anyway, and were advised that the rest of the area, once treated, did not require replacement.

The treatment was done in our absence. When we returned in early December Nick & Jon had ripped up the kitchen floorboards, and burnt them, along with several of the kitchen units which the termites had begun to destroy. We spent a couple of weeks cooking in the microwave in the back kitchen and hoping all would be restored before our New Year guests arrived. It was.

Meantime the Jardins du Perigord team had been busy in the garden.

My “Mediterranean Garden” was planted

Thanks to Jan we made contact with local artist Liz King Sangster and husband Graeme. It had occurred to me during the summer that the bare expanse of garage wall might be improved by a trompe l’oeil, and Liz agreed to undertake the project, while Graeme found a local macon to resurface the wall before painting started.

The landscaping team also did some planting along the borders of the unusual stone runnel which had taken the waste water outflow from the kitchen before we replaced the fosse,

and cleared out the dell on the upper terrace in preparation for the water feature

and the hugely overgrown area around the lower cave.

New Year was crisp and sunny. Fiona & Gordon came with the dogs and we discovered some new walks together. We looked forward to spring.

In April the work I had done on the established Iris beds was beginning to pay off, and I also discovered a lovely Tamarix on one of the lower terraces.

John & Glenys came to visit in their camper van. Together we discovered the fascinating grotte at Rouffignac. John did sterling work uprooting the multitude of baby oak trees which were pushing up through the new gravel in Petit Versailles, and we benefited from Glenys’s archaeological expertise as she identified flints from prehistoric arrowheads in the gravel garden and we imagined primitive man admiring our view as they chipped at their hunting tools.

At the end of April we enjoyed a week of walking and sightseeing in Croatia in company with Dominique’s walking group.

By mid May the re-landscaping of the space between the garage and the house was complete. Instead of a scrubby sloping lawn bisected by  a gravel path, leading to a gravel rectangle and doubtful lean-to on the garage wall, we had 4 narrow terraced beds rising up from the parking area to the pool.

It only remained to get them planted. I contemplated trying to organize a work party of willing friends but the thought of importing top soil and gravel, and of laying down a weed suppressing membrane was daunting. Fortunately Jan and Jardins du Perigord came to my rescue once again, willing to do the work and source the plants to my design. My plan for this area was a Mediterranean style garden, borrowing from images I had seen of La Loupe in Provence. I wanted to create a tapestry of evergreens in different shades of green and grey which would grow together over time, with lavender bordered paths between. Flowering plants were not excluded but flowers were a secondary feature. I had until autumn to complete my design.

In the meantime I cleared the border on walnut terrace, again, planning to plant in the autumn. I was aiming for a cool feel, blues and white with some yellow highlights. I ordered drought tolerant plants from Pepinieres Filippi, and, in defiance of the deer, a few yellow roses.

The new boundary wall at the bottom of the drive was now complete, and with the trees gone there was space for some shrubs to brighten the entry. I bought a pick-axe and managed to dig some planting holes. My prize purchase was a Cornus Controversus, long coveted, and lovely it was for the week after I planted it. Then we went back to Scotland. When we got back the deer had shown their appreciation by chewing off every leaf. It did not recover and has been replaced with a white hibiscus which I had removed when I turned the small bed at the back kitchen door into a herb garden. Deer do eat the hibiscus, but not with any great enthusiasm. The chaenomeles and wigelia I planted at the same time have survived, but once again there were thefts of some of the smaller shrubs which have had to be replaced.

I also started a new bed, “the stone circle” since I bordered it with rocks, over the patch of grass at the north end of the parking area where the geothermie wells had been dug, largely to discourage vehicles from driving over the wells and the associated piping, which I had been warned was vulnerable. Early planting of dwarf conifers, which appear in general to do well in my neighbours’ gardens, were not successful, so that bed continues to evolve.

The perennial planting in the Gravel garden was completed in May, in lovely weather. The Wine Tasters arrived just as the planting finished, they had about an hour to admire it before, predictably as we had guests, the rain started, at least the plants were well watered in. The rain lasted most of the weekend, but at least we managed lunch in the garden at Tremolat before they left.

The “Angellos” which I had purchased form the brocante at St Capraise arrived the same day, along with a stone greyhound, christened Sirus, who totally fails to scare the rabbits from his vantage point guarding the Gravel Garden.

The Angellos were to provide a feature in the rather odd circular paved area at the top turning of the drive. I have no idea what its original purpose was, too shallow for a pool.

The Iris I had planted our first autumn. just uphill from the Angellos, also began flowering that spring.

I returned in mid June to spend a few days with my father. It had been dry so I set to watering the new plantings, which of course brought the rain down again. Memorable moment, soaked through in grubby shorts and t-shirt from trying to set up hoses in the rain when the local Jehovah’s witnesses arrived, I did not share their view that it was a good time for a chat!

Rob & I managed a trip to Perigeux, then he went home and I set off for a wine course in Beaune. Peter had arrived when I got back, and the rain had stopped  we spent the rest of that visit buying up all the mini sprinklers and small bore tubing in the vicinity to set up a more permanent watering arrangement. Our efforts were rewarded, considering the late planting the Gravel Garden was looking pretty good by mid July.

By August it was even better.

We returned to Scotland at the beginning of August. As we were leaving we noticed that one of the feet on the fridge had begun to sink through a crumbling kitchen floorboard. The carpenter thought it was probably just damp. He arranged to do the repair in September.

In the autumn, after liberal application of weedkiller, Fabien & Vicky started to dig and layout the gravel garden, a relatively informal planting of grasses and perennials in the area beyond the pool,  the formal topiary garden below the front terrace, christened by Peter “Petit Versailles”, and the border round the pool which they planted with lavender and 4 small olive trees. for decorative purposes only, we do not expect them to fruit.

In the meantime I made a start at digging out the couch grass and other multiple weeds on the north side of “walnut terrace”, where I believe there must have been a flowerbed at some time in the past, long overgrown.

We were also actively pursuing Groupe Solaire and EDF to dig a trench from garage to electricity pylon in order to connect our photovoltaique panels to the grid and start earning us some return on our investment. It took us until November to discover that Groupe Solaire had mislaid our contract, and when they managed to find it and send us a copy, that it contained a transcription error confusing out French and UK addresses. Several months of frustrating correspondence ensued. The trench was finally completed, at the third attempt, in April and by May we were finally connected.

In September, on Jan’s instruction, we made at trip to the brocante in Riberac where we acquired various items of Garden “furniture” including the gloriette and an urn for Petit Versailles, given the weight of these items we were fortunate that Fabien & Vicky were around to help with the unloading on delivery!

Digging in Petit Versailles turned up some interesting items, including an electric cable, clearly connected to something deep in the ground. Work stopped until the electrician had been summoned to establish that it was not live or connected to anything in the house. It remains a mystery.

Electricity was something of a feature of that autumn. October storms resulted in a power cut which lasted a couple of days for those of us living “up the hill” while maddeningly power was restored in town within hours, so we could look out and see the lights while attempting to cook on the gas hob with head torch and candles. I was papering and painting the blue bedroom at the time, my excuse for any imperfections in the final result.

We also discovered the limitations of the “re-enclencheur” sold to us by the burglar alarm supplier as the solution to the power going off when we were away. It blew out the main fusebox during our absence in September. Dominique managed to get it fixed ( and emptied my freezer into her own, wonderful woman). We were advised not to reconnect it, but Peter knew better, it blew the main fusebox for the second time in January and is now officially redundant.

The bare floorboards in the upstairs bedroom were floored over with “parquet” in November.

By December planting in Petit Versailles was complete

and we discovered that deer are fond of Eunonymus, despite our attempts to cover over the feature plants in the centre of the box beds they were literally eaten to death and have been replaced with something less tasty. Happily neither the box nor the santolina seems to appeal to them, and although there has been some attrition the roses are just about hanging in there, although the deer do the pruning for me.

The deer proved less interested in the Gravel Garden, where the autumn planting was restricted to grasses, the perennials were to wait until spring. The bunnies however proved grateful for this variation in their diet, or perhaps just irked by our digging  in a territory they had previously considered their own, since they dug up a fair number of plants without eating them.

In December Peter decided to construct the gloriette, which had arrived in multiple sections, himself. He started by putting the top circle together, put up the sides, discovered he could not lift the top onto the sides, it is very heavy, so took it all apart and started again, a noble effort.

Over the winter I started clearing the long neglected iris beds. The builder eventually came and built us a splendid reinforced garden wall, and promised he would be back soon to terrace the area between house and garage and tile the steps to the pool and the path from pool to the pool controls in the garage, an uncomfortable walk in bare feet. We were encouraged by the pile of stones he left as proof of his intention to get started and in late April work did indeed begin.

We looked forward to watching our new garden bloom.