Our French Garden

I have been prompted to write this post as part of a monthly blogging challenge, ‘Tell Us About’. This month the topic was chosen by one of my favourite bloggers who blogs at https://frugalfashionshopper.co.uk/

The chosen topic is ‘Tell Us About Gardens and Gardening‘. I love gardens but I’m not a green-fingered gardener! Oddly, I’m much more successful when it comes to houseplants. Mr. FF wouldn’t profess to be a gardener either, but the way our lives have panned out, he takes on a lot of the gardening duties.

Our French garden is large, probably far too large for us, in reality. Our French friends describe it as a ‘parc’ but I’m not sure that’s accurate, either! One of the aspects I like most is that from the end of the back garden, we have direct access on to the Canal du Midi towpath. I also love the number of trees we have here.

We don’t have a lawn, at least not in the English garden style of lawn, but we do have a lot of grass. Luckily, Mr. FF has a second-hand sit-on mower. He takes great pleasure in zooming around the garden when cutting the grass!

Another advantage of our French garden is that it’s ideal for Zeph, our Border Collie, to enjoy. In the photo below he is relaxing in the front garden.

This is part of the back of our house. We have a glorious lime tree that offers shade when we are sitting on the terrace outside the kitchen, We tend to follow the sun around, so in the late afternoon, we sit at the front of the property. We have a lot of oleanders around the garden. They are well equipped to deal with the hot and sunny weather when it is prevalent.

When we were looking for our house we had certain criteria. They did not include a swimming pool! However, knowing that the pool has given a lot of pleasure to our family and friends, makes the maintenance it requires, worthwhile.

We do have some flowers in our garden but no ‘formal’ flower beds. I’m surprised by how well the roses grow here. They were already in place when we bought the property.

I love container gardening, and we plant those we have inherited from the previous owners, with geraniums. They always look so cheerful and so French!

We have quite a variety of trees in our garden, and one of my favourites is the olive pictured below.

Another aspect of our French garden that I love is the wildlife. We have red squirrels which are much smaller and much cuter than their grey counterparts! It’s such a pleasure to watch them chasing along the ground or up and down the tree trunks.

The hoopoe or huppe bird is another one of my favourite visitors. I like to think of him as the punk of the bird world!

We spend more time outside than in and are fortunate to have such a lovely (in my opinion!) garden. One of my favourite activities is sitting in the garden, and reading a book with a cup of tea or a cold beer!