Flowers, buildings, and food....

It's hard to believe that summer is almost here! We've been quite busy with projects and garden visits. We do finally have a good number of pictures posted from Heather's trip to France, Belgium and Holland. They've yet to be properly tagged and titled, but you can still enjoy them in the slideshow below!

Eating the Garden whilst Enjoying the Flowers

An exciting hunt through the markets of Paris elicited a mouth-watering and tantalizing visual feast. My favorite seeds that I found are Italian - Franchi seeds Misticanza Quattro Stagioni - a delightful find of mesclun, endive and chicory.

Digo varietà medio-precoce, mistacanza ottenuta dalle migliori varietà di lattughe indivie e cicorie, assortite per precocità e gusto. Le varietà da taglio rivegetano rapidamente.

Il dit, une mélange variété moyen-précoce, obtenue des meilleures variétés de laitues, endives et chicorées, assorties pour précocité et de goûte. Les variétés de coupe, végètent rapidment de nouveau.

Y también una variedad semiprecoz, mezcla obtenida de las mejores variedades de lechuga, achicoria y escarola, escogidas por su precocidad y sabor. Rebrota rapidamente después de cortar.

I also purchased beautiful red lettuce seeds - laitue batavia grenobloise rouge, and seeds distributed by Aviflora which are for dark opal basil – a delicious and beautiful deep, burgundy-tinted basil.

Un basilic très décorative par ses feuilles violettes, très joli dans le jardin mais surtout à utilizer en garniture dans la cuisine.

The final wonderful lettuce I discovered is called Lattuga Lingua di canarino. It is an early lettuce, and has long almost pointed leaves – but with enough surface that it still looks like, and tastes like a lettuce. Franchi Sementi again.

More photos from France, Paris, Giverny, and Versailles...

We have a small collection of photos that we have received from Heather showing us what she has been up to during her trip in Europe. We thought that we should put them up on the blog to share the beautiful moments she's had out on the other side of the world!  She spent a good portion of last week in France seeing all the beautiful sights. Surprisingly this photo shows Heather's true nature: attraction to plants.



A beautiful Vignette in Paris


Heather also sent us photos of Giverny, one of her favorite places in the entire world. For those who have never heard of Giverny, it's located about 80km north west of Paris and is most well known as the location of Claude Monet's (yes, the painter) home and garden. She sent us a few photos to share with us how beautiful Giverny really is.

A beautiful collection of plants and blooming flowers


Beautiful Purple Blooms by the Lakeside


Lake at Giverny


Tulip Beds


Heather by the Tulip beds


Outside of Giverny, Heather snapped a beautiful planting arrangement at the Carnavalet Museum.


Finally, no trip to France would be complete (for a Landscape Architect) without visiting the amazing Versailles, or Château de Versailles. André Le Nôtre was responsible for the gardening and planning of Versailles during King Louis XIV's rule. It's such a significant place in design history being a monumental step of axial planning that has influenced future city planning and formal garden design. Of course it's also a very lovely place to be in...



We'll be updating tomorrow with some more photos from Europe!