Gardens + Design

Les Jardins de Chaudière-Bassin, an artists’ garden

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White cedars (Thuja occidentalis) and yews (Taxus) get precision haircuts

It takes you by surprise. As you walk up the gentle rise through a very pleasant, but somewhat conventional shade garden in front and stand beside the hundred-year-old cedar-shingled home in St-Romuald, Quebec you see this. It’s a wow reveal; so beautiful, and so unexpected.

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The opening view of the garden

In their Jardins de Chaudière-Bassin, artists Suzanne Gravel and Yvon Milliard have created a green canvas, with occasional dabs of colour, on which they’ve arranged topiaries with pencil-sharpener points and cloud-form hedging. And set amongst it all is artwork by Québec artists and artisans, including themselves. My visit was pure delight. I hope you’ll enjoy it, too.

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A blast of purple and red Phlox against the cool reserve of tightly clipped green balls and hedging
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A cast iron arch by Étienne Guay of St-Jean Port-Joli – Suzanne rang the bell for us
One long, narrow garden room along a fence is totally devoted to Clematis
One long, narrow garden room along a fence is totally devoted to Clematis
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The pool is a segue between the more formal area and the informal woodland
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A path through the wooded area is lined with paper birch (Betula papyrifera)
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The rear entry features the cedar tower ‘1759’ by artist René Taillefer at the end of a young allée of scented lilacs (Syringa)

This marks the end of my informal NaBloPoMo 2013 – 30 posts in 30 days. Thanks for coming along with me. We now resume our regular scheduling.

Helen

Helen Battersby is a gardener, a writer, a garden speaker, and a power-walker, not always in that order!

3 comments

    1. Awesome is what it was. Wish I had better pictures to give you a complete sense of the place. It's open to the public by appointment. If you're ever near Quebec City, go.

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