HIDDEN GEM:GREEN-FINGERED art lovers won't want to miss visiting Le Vallon du Brec at Coursegoules, near Nice, in the south of France.
This jardin botanique, jardin d'artistebelongs to Yanyvone Broudic and Jean Grisot, photographer and artist respectively. Created in 1992 against a hillside in the Vence back country, the garden has been awarded the government label of Jardin Remarquable.
And a remarkable garden it most certainly is. You visit the Vallon du Brec, which is planted with more than 900 varieties of bushes and shrubs, rather like climbing a staircase.
The first garden features an ornamental pond with aquatic plants, large bushes shaped into balls, small enclosed gardens sheltered from the prevailing winds, a rose garden planted with old varieties, a garden of galets – those large river-rounded pebbles you find on the beach at Nice – and is home to some of Grisot’s sculptures.
It opens into a larger space more recently planted with botanical varieties originating in China, Japan and North America, mainly shrubs and smaller trees, chosen primarily for their colour.
This garden is surrounded by another, wilder one of Montpelier acers and blackthorn, which forms the property’s boundaries. And you’ll come across walkways between gardens, a “tea house” reminiscent of the follies of 18th-century gardens, and open-sided structures housing giant aloes and cacti.
You normally have to make an appointment to visit the Vallon du Brec, but as the garden is a member of Rendez-vous aux Jardins, a national event organised by the French ministry of culture, it is open to the public over the weekend of June 4th-6th.
The theme for this eighth edition is le jardinier et ses outils– or the gardener and his tools – so, gardeners, put your own tools back in the potting shed and potter down south.
- levallondubrec.com