Fête des jardins

In search of a short break, we found the Garden Festival at Tréveneuc in Brittany, so we went.   The event is held in the grounds of the local château, and features plants from nurseries in France and farther afield.  The range of trees, shrubs and other plants was impressive, and we bought some Dahlia tubers and begonia corms from a Dutch guy who was there.    We will go again if we need to plan a garden from scratch.

There was a talk (indoors) in the afternoon by Fergus Garrett, the head gardener at Great Dixter in SE England.   He's a world-class gardener for sure, but somewhat lacking in presentation skills, I felt; it was hard to know what point(s) he was wanting to make during his pitch, that was a bit random.  There's no doubt however, that his garden is most impressive, and at all seasons.

The weather wasn't too kind.   We had had several days of fine Spring weather, with daily highs of 18°C or so, and sunny spells.  But on the day of the fête we got 14° high, and in the afternoon it chucked down while we were inside at Fergus Garrett's  talk.   The car park was in a series of fields, so the rain made getting out quite interesting for people who stayed to the end of the day.   It only takes an inch or so of mud on a grassy field and all those cars without 4WD exhibit a decided reluctance to go anywhere.

Tips for future visits:  bring sarnies, park where you can access a tarmac road easily from the grassy field car park in case it rains, come early.

After the show we explored the Brittany coastline for a bit, before going on to St Malo to meet my sister and her hubby on a day trip.