Sunday, April 25, 2010

Mille Fleurs Open Garden

Last weekend, while we were out on our Sunday afternoon drive, we came across a sign for an open garden.

We followed the signs through the lanes to discover a very organised event. There was a car park in a nearby field which was manned by five car park attendants who were there to ensure no problems arose from the hundreds cars overflowing with garden lovers all coming for a sticky beak.

'Mille Fleurs ' is a property which has been recorded in the Balliwick of Guernsey's Land Registry for over one hundred years, although I expect the house itself is much older.

'Mille Fleurs' means a thousand flowers and on this bright, warm and sunny day it certainly lived up to its name.

There property's gardens are set on two and a half acres of hilly countryside. The sloping land allowed for many different terraced areas all dedicated to different types of plants.

The grounds are not only home to beautiful gardens but also contain several holiday cottages. It would be a wonderful place to stay whilst in Guernsey; the swimming pool area is fabulous (sorry my photos of the pool area didn't turn out).
I love euphorbias; the lime green flowers give a great accent to any border planting. We have some of the smaller variety in our garden but after seeing this display I am trying to find room for one of the larger growing varieties.

This is one of my favourite photo from the garden. This wheelbarrow was hidden away at the back of one of the sheds. This photo sums it all up really, that is to say the secret behind any good garden is an awful lot of hard work which goes on behind the scenes.

The magnolias are in full bloom. There was quite a large variety of different magnolias in the garden.
B3 was highly skeptical about the bird scaring qualities of this fine fellow. She said that he was too friendly to frighten away anything!

The vegetable garden was brimming with plenty of tasty treats. It has spurred Mr Bee on to put some more work into our own modest plot at home.



The property backs onto a small reservoir. I think water in a garden adds that special extra something, it feels more peaceful somehow.


The Bumble B'eers were hopeful that they would be allowed one of the delicious looking cakes being sold at the 'cafe' but by the time we had finished looking around the garden half of Guernsey had turned up and all seemed to be queueing for cakes so we squeezed our way through the crowd and made our way back to the car park. We promised the kids a treat on the way home.

It was such a pleasure to have an opportunity to look around one of the hidden gardens of Guernsey. I call them hidden as when you walk or drive around the lanes most gardens are hidden away behind tall, thick hedges or enormous stone walls so you never have a chance to truly appreciate them.

Congratulations 'Mille Fleurs' on being a finalists in the RHS Britain in Bloom competition; a very well deserved honour indeed.

1 comment:

  1. Beautiful house and gardens. I can see why they would be a finalist IN the RHS competition. I like the picture of part of the vegetable garden.

    Warm wishes
    Isabelle x

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