An atmospheric garden perched on a Provençal hilltop
There is a feeling of mounting enchantment as you walk along a stone-edged path in Kate and Nicholas Coulson’s garden, set above a village perché in Provence. The route is waist-high with hundreds of slender Iris pallida, the papery buds and silky blue petals of which shimmer in the fresh dazzle of a May morning. Lime green Euphorbia characias spills over the curved path and a line of flat-topped cypresses leads your eye to exhilarating views of the surrounding Luberon hills.
These elegant trees are an homage to the quintessential Provençal garden style developed by the former Hermès textile designer Nicole de Vésian at her celebrated garden La Louve. However, it was clear to the Coulsons that the exposed position of their own plot ‘ruled out the sort of polite lavender and clipped olive gardening’ that Kate could see was so dominant in this part of France. There would be no shelter here from the Mistral, which hurtles across the ridge: ‘This strong, cold wind dries out what little moisture remains in the dusty impoverished soil,’ she explains. There are bitter winters with sub-zero temperatures and violent thunderstorms and soaring heat in summer. ‘It’s very elemental here. The hail can be terrifying – in the vineyards, the leaves are like lace afterwards.’
A passionate and intuitive gardener, trained in plantsmanship and garden design at the English Gardening School and with a distinguished garden at the couple’s home in Cumbria under her belt, Kate set about assessing the challenges and opportunities of this new space. At either end of the long narrow plot were two buildings – a low modern house of garish yellow stone and a smaller 19th-century cottage. In between, there was a muddle of collapsed walls, rusting chain-link fences and what remained of attempts to grow unsuitable plants – a sickly rose, a stunted hydrangea – among tangles of irrigation hose. But there were exciting finds, too: a craggy group of wind-blown oaks, a pair of Judas trees and two tabletop mulberries planted next to the swimming pool to cast shade. There were also three fine bories – the traditional low drystone huts of the region – set around a circular threshing floor at the centre of the garden.
The garden was cleared of unwanted material and the main house re-clothed in earth-coloured render. A pair of French windows now provides a much needed link between cottage and garden. Cars, previously drawn to the pale limestone circle of the threshing floor, have been cleverly rerouted to a discreet corner where they are hidden under a tonnelle – a traditional French wrought-iron pergola – smothered in Rosa banksiae ‘Lutea’.
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For the garden itself, Kate felt sure that the way forward was to discount plants that would need constant irrigation and to choose instead garrigue plants that are native to the region, such as euphorbia, Viburnum tinus, arbutus and rosemary. She became excited by the potential of planting generously and arranging and manipulating this palette of tough, naturally adapted species to pull the site together cohesively. Kate used the wild Mediterranean privet, Phillyrea angustifolia, which has dense, narrow evergreen leaves and responds well to clipping, to. create ‘tightly packed, overlapping hillocks’ that echo the ridged slopes of the Luberon.
She had seen Iris pallida ‘growing like a weed on verges’, but never celebrated as the star of the show. She planted over 2,000 ‘to flood the garden with blue in early May’ and chose Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’ to provide an ongoing haze of blue from June to October. The planting is illuminated with splashes of yellow fromPhlomis grandiflora, lemon yellow hollyhocks and towering outcrops of giant fennel.
During the planning stage, Kate got to know Olivier Filippi, an authority on drought-tolerant Mediterranean plants who runs a specialist nursery near Montpellier. Meeting Olivier had a huge effect on what came next. ‘I was thrilled to discover someone so expert. His plants have little top growth but incredibly long roots that can penetrate tiny fissures in the rock.
‘At the end of October 2013, our first consignment of 700 plants arrived. Wielding mattocks, my young gardener, Mathieu de Bersacques, and I hacked at the stony ground for two days. Each plant was set in a saucer of earth 60cm wide that could hold 20 litres of water. From May onwards, throughout the summer months of the first year, these cuvettes had to be filled every three weeks. It took 10 hours of non-stop watering to cover just half the garden,’ Kate recalls. She travelled to France regularly to spend an entire week weeding and watering and ‘as the tiny plants began to grow, Mathieu hovered with his shears and clipped them back to encourage bushy growth’.
By July 2014, Kate could finally see the new garden emerge and the following year she tackled the other half of the site – planting more densely this time to speed things up. Here, a framework of tight, almost frosted waves of Teucrium fruticans has become an exquisite backdrop to the irises and shaggy cushions of Atriplex canescens.
After this monumental effort, the garden has almost become self-sufficient with attention now focused on clipping the structural planting. The only watering these days is when there is new planting – an extra trail of iris, perhaps – or to nurture a tiny self-seeded Judas tree.
This is a brilliantly accomplished, atmospheric garden – created with unstoppable dedication and an instinctive sense of place. It sits blissfully in its ridge-top position, the table-top mulberries stretched out against clear skies, and in the shade of its wind-blown trees there is always a perfect spot in which to lie quietly and dream.
Pépinière Filippi: jardin-sec.com
Eva Nemeth1/9Cypresses shaped into columns lead the eye from plantings of Iris pallida, lime green Euphorbia characias and clipped mounds of Phillyrea angustifolia to the views of the surrounding Luberon hills.
Eva Nemeth2/9A gnarled almond tree is underplanted with neatly trimmed waves of Teucrium fruticans interspersed with Iris pallida. Flat heads of yellow achillea float among these sculptural shapes in summer.
Eva Nemeth3/9One of the magical iris-lined paths leading toward a stand of downy oaks at the heart of the garden. Before the irises come into bloom, this area is filled with yellow Tulipa sylvestris and, later on, with towering lemon hollyhocks.
Eva Nemeth4/9Pieces of stone found in the garden were laid on end to create a charmingly
irregular edging to the beds that is both decorative and practical. As well as retaining the soil, the rock picks up on other rustic garden structures.
Eva Nemeth5/9One of three bories, traditional drystone huts, which bring character to the area around a circular threshing floor.
Eva Nemeth6/9A mix of trees, from neat cypresses to shaggy pines, punctuate the planting.
Eva Nemeth7/9Lines of silvery Teucrium fruticans, dark green Phillyrea angustifolia and Iris pallida provide waves of form and colour near the guest cottage. From mid June, Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’ takes over from the irises, creating a haze of blue until October.
Eva Nemeth8/9The view across to the Luberon valley, with the mounded forms of teucrium
and phillyrea echoing the shape of the hills beyond.
Eva Nemeth9/9The almost horizontal branches of a pair of table-top mulberry trees cast shade by the pool.
