Château de Dampierre: The Garden is Now Completed ! (for the pavilion)

Hello everyone, welcome back to Dampierre. Today is going to be about the garden close to the pavilion. We had a long talk before about the little drawings and the map of what was the project for the little garden down of the pavilion and now it's done and we're going to have a look and we're going to talk about maintenance and what needs to be done still. First, in front of the pavilions we decided to give a little bit, even if the area is pretty dry and mineral, we wanted to give a little bit of greenery and something a little bit more soft, bringing some plants. So we decided to put roses. We bought pretty tall roses. It was almost two meters but finally, after six months, it grows so much. So hopefully, the roses will actually go a little bit over there. Now, it's not really the season of the roses but we cut them to make sure that September, October, we'll have the new roses coming and it's called Pierre de Ronsard, the very famous French writer who wrote so much about roses and some poetry about it, comparing the skin of women with the petal of a rose. Everyone knows that one. And they are like pretty subtle, soft and they smell pretty nicely and hopefully, it's going to cover a little bit on top of the window and for roses, actually, it shows like it's going up and climbing it but actually, it doesn't. We just need to put some metal threads and strings and to pull it and to attach it to make sure that it goes on the right direction. We also put little buxus on the bottom part. This is a very special variety of buxus because in Europe, I don't know how it is in America or other continents, but we have the moth. Moth, I think it's called. It's a little worm and a butterfly that is literally eating the buxus everywhere and there is a special buxus mixed with a buxus from Asia. It's called Beta Buxus. It's a Belgian company that developed it and they have a resistance on the moth. The thing is the moth will still eat it a bit but will never kill it and doesn't eat it all. So, we keep doing the little treatments on it, the anti-moth treatments but still, it's surviving and we see a big difference between the bui that we have here and a couple of very old bui we have in the park that were like so beautiful because they were never like trimmed. So, they are literally like big trees and they got really, really eaten and they suffered so much. So, here the roses, the little bui in here, we put laurels over here and little pervenche in here, the little white flowers that are supposed to grow a little bit more. Also, here close to the gate, we decided to not close completely the view. We wanted something that was still opened but we didn't want to have so much proximity with the road. So, we decided to put some charmilles. So, I thought this level of charmilles was a smart level because you cannot really see the road but you can still see the people and also, you have the lanterns and I wanted the lanterns to keep giving a little bit of light inside also. So, we bought actually pretty tall and big charmilles because usually, when you buy it, it's so small but I like quick results. So, we bought a bit bigger. There is actually like a green hunter called Axel Levavasseur. This is a very nice story. He is a guy from a family called Levavasseur family. Levavasseur family had a nursery, a nursery for plants for centuries and actually, Louis XIV, the Sun King, decided to make this family the official provider of plants of Versailles. So, they even had like a pension every year to have this kind of responsibility and for years, they were the official providers of plants with this nursery and they were like vegetal hunters to find the perfect plants for the king and the kings even after. And actually, they kept this nursery for centuries until really recently in 2010, I think, and finally, the family closed but the heir of the family still has all the contacts in Europe and now, he's freelancing and he's looking for a specific plant that you look for the specific volume and size. If you look for topiaries, you can find exactly what you want in Italy, in Belgium, in Germany, all over Europe and you can find the specific plant you want. So, he actually found a beautiful hedge of a charmille that is actually very happy here. We planted it six months ago and we already had to cut it four times which is like crazy. Usually, you cut it twice a year and in six months, we had to cut it twice because it was raining a lot and the temperature right now is literally tropical because it's pretty warm and very humid. So, everything is growing crazy but I think it's very specific of this year. And now, we're going to go to the pavilion garden, the one we did the little design and you will see from above the shape it has and I'm pretty happy with the result you will see. So, from above, I find it very cute because I love the closed garden. I like when you have a little garden that is in between walls, in between the forest and it looks very cozy. And in France, it's what we call the jardin de curé which is like a garden of a priest because back in the days inside of the churches and around the church, it was always the abbey and in the abbey was a little courtyard with a little garden when they used to put medicinal plants. Here, we didn't put medicinal plants. Dan, the landscape designer, was really happy to do hydrangea and to put all the hydrangea, the Annabelle's one, the one that are very white and full. He wanted to put only this to make like a tapi and looking like a cloud of hydrangeas. Now, with the season because now we are in September, it used to be completely white and these hydrangeas have the specificity to actually turn into green in September and into brown in the winter. So, you still have some flowers and some decoration, very decorative flowers that evolve with the season which is pretty interesting. And we decided to do this kind of shape. So, we planted the Betta arbuxus again, a taller version of it, and putting the Annabelle's, the hydrangeas inside. And in the middle, we have a bird feeder which is like a marble little fountain and there is no fountain, there is no water coming out but it's just keeping the water from the rain and it's always full of water and it's very cute because every morning when you arrive, you see the birds like standing around and just having a little chat and drinking a little bit of water. Around, to keep the area completely closed, we had to put some Taxus. That is very happy. Actually, the very funniest thing about Taxus is it's not supposed to grow too quickly. The point of it is to make sure that you don't have to trim it too often. But you can tell that you have the very dark green of the buxus that is from last year and you have all the little pus, the little grow of light green of the little growing parts of the buxus from this year. And we were pretty upset when we received it because we bought a very tall Taxus to make sure that the hedge is going to look full and ready right away. And actually, the crazy people from the delivery decided for more convenience, for it to be more convenient to cut all the little trees, not high, but to make them very slim so they could transport easier. So they arrived and it looked like a piano basically. It was like one little stripes everywhere and it was very ugly. But actually, it's very specific this year because of the rain and the temperature. But it starts to reconnect again so it looks like a little hedge right now. I think next year is going to be an old story. So I'm pretty happy about it. And we also planted very nice Listeria. I love Listeria. You can enjoy the flowers very little time. But still, I love the complication of the trunk. Usually, you see how it was difficult and they love and they hate and they are together and then they separate and they come back again. It looks like basically a tree of life to me. And let's go down now. We're going to see it from inside. We created this little gate. Actually, when you have an old house like this, it is good to create but actually, it's good to replicate and to imitate. This is kind of a secret to keep a little bit of unity and harmony and if you want to have something that looks authentic. So we have a gate in the garden on top of the little bridge over there and we decided to actually replicate the same gate everywhere in the property. So you have pick a flame. This looks like a flame and this looks like a weapon, like a knife. So this is very 17th, 18th century style and we decided to replicate this exactly and I find it very cute. And also, the color is automatically the same one as the gate which is like the 7022 and if you check on the RAL classification. So here is the gate with little stairs. There is another one over there to trim the grass and actually, after you can just walk like this and imagine you're like a 17th century prince or princess walking through the flowers and I find it very pleasant. And here is really a little paradise when you're down because you can just sit on a little bench. This bench is a reproduction of the one that were in the formal French gardens in the 18th century. It's done by the same company, Saint-Allemand. They are very slow but they are very good. The same company that I have in the property. So it's very nice wood and it's really nicely done and you can just sit here with a little lantern in the evening. You can read a book, kill the mosquitoes but you can have a good time in here. Just behind, there's a lot of jasmine that was just planted. So it started growing a bit everywhere. It's going to cover the wall completely and bring nice flowers in the spring. And here, it's going to develop a little bit more. There are some ferns. There are some hydrangeas also but the pink one. There are some peonies also. We are not so sure about the peonies' happiness here. We will see how it goes because there is not so much light because it's really a north exposure. About the grass, this is a little bit my fault. It's definitely my fault because I like the things to look pretty nice and tidy pretty quickly. So we put, you know, the grass that you can roll, the roll of grass. So it was perfectly looking for a while and actually, this grass that you can buy on a roll looks right away perfect but it was not the quality of grass that is happy in the shade. So we will need to change this kind of grass with a different variety that's going to be more happy in the shade. And here, we are like down to the little, the bedroom that is on the ground floor of the pavilion. And here, there is a little salon that we need to rearrange. Actually, here is very nice to have a breakfast. And here in this little cupboard over there, there is actually the machinery for the air conditioning. So it's actually very convenient. If you haven't, you never know where to put it and you have a wall somewhere, you just make a hole in the wall and you put the machinery in it and there is where the pompe à chaleur, where they take the hot temperature and they turn it into air conditioning. And this is very nice to hide it. It's not really noisy and actually, you don't really see it. And it's going to be repainted because the pavilion garden, the pavilion garden, all the windows of the pavilions will be repainted and the color will change because we will see a bit later, but the Châtelet will have windows painted in a light pale almond green. That was almost a gray, but I mean, it's pretty subtle and it's nice. So we decided to do the same color for the pavilion and the Châtelet. So this is going to be repainted soon because the painting of the Châtelet will be a painting based on oil, on linen oil. And it's pretty interesting. It's called La Malvinière. I will give you all the information after because it's basically a fortune, but it lasts very long. And actually, you can restore the painting with a little bit of oil later. You put a little bit of oil five, 10 years after, just oil with a little brush and up the colors are back and it's really resistant. Here, we didn't do that. We used like a water painting. So we are not going to use the same painting, but it needs to be repainted every two, four years. So we did it two years ago and already starts like getting a bit... I mean, we can see that it needs a little bit of refreshment. So we're going to do it now and we're going to repeat it in four years and we're going to change the color. So let's see. And here we leave this little hidden garden to go to another little one with another Listeria that looks pretty happy and starts to colonize all the area. And I like this garden a lot because you have the little coziness of this area between the taxis and the charmees. And here is actually the moat just down. And I like because you have a view on the forest. And in the forest, we replanted a lot of ivy to re-densify a little bit the sous-bois. And this is really nice in early spring because Dan had the idea to plant some many bulbs. So we have Jacinthe des Bois. We have many different types of bulbs that are growing through the ivy. The ivy stays here winter all year long. So you all have always have like a green tapis carpet everywhere in the forest. But different seasons, like late March, in April, and even in May or June, you have different types of bulbs that are growing through the ivy. And all of a sudden, it looks completely different. And it's really nice actually to come here and see through the seasons all the new flowers coming. And it changes completely the landscape and what you see. And this is pretty amazing to see the evolution of nature through the season. For this gate, it was a bit complicated. We questioned ourselves so long when actually the solution was sometimes so simple. This heath, this taxis was not here, the two little ones. And it was just a wall arriving here and we didn't really... we were not really happy with the way it looked because it looked a bit like something was missing. And it was a big vase here and not in the other side. So we decided to put a second one, but actually putting like a stone again just here like a plot was a bit bizarre. So we decided to remove it all and to put a little heath that we're going to do a little topiary shape with a round place like this. And it actually looks so much more natural and logical. You know, when you arrive here, nothing is catching your eyes. It looks like fluid. And I like that. Just behind, we ordered the big magnolia, the soulangeana, which is like the light pink one. Hopefully, it's going to be happy here because there is a little bit of sun arriving here. And it's a very quick flowering period. But hopefully, we can enjoy it. It's usually around April, end of March, beginning of April, around Easter. And it lasts something like two, three weeks or sometimes a little bit less. But you have a beautiful tree with so many beautiful flowers and after it only leaves. And when we leave this little garden and we want to continue the walk in the forest, I'm really happy about this little idea. It was to frame a little bit the entrance of the forest. And I like it to make a little bit official. So here you have the little path coming down. And we decided to put two topiaries, left and right, exactly the same one, to actually mark the entrance of the forest. So I really like it. And after you can see that here is pretty open and over there, all the trees are starting. So it's really like a little door to the forest. And here, we had to cut so many branches and trees because it was a crazy storm like three weeks ago. In literally 20 minutes, it was so much wind that so many trees fell down and we had to cut it all. So it was pretty violent, I have to say. So about the garden, there is more to see. I will do another video that I will post soon about the rest of the garden, about the Parc Terrestre and about the Parc Terre Sud and the project for the Parc Terre Sud. We're going to talk about it.