Le
Jardin de Jumaju
les
roses anciennes des Fieffes
When you arrive at the garden, do not take fright
at the sight of "Grandma" et Granddad". These two scarecrows
have donned their best summer clothes to greet you.
Many visitors wonder about the origin of the name
of the garden. there is nothing mysteriois about it- it is just taken from
the names of the owners' three granddaughters; Justine,
Marion and Julime
The
apple-orchard (in full flower) before it was converted to a franch-style garden
The
two views on the left show the layout when we bought the property; we put in
the drive and parking area ourselves, which dates the pictures to the autumn
of 1981. the lower picture shows thatwe had planted a minuscule tree- a cedar
of Lebanon that now provides shade to a large area in the front of the house.
The same pictures shows the cider-apples which were the only trees in the field
that came with the house. The ones that survived the hurricanes of 1987 and
1999 have proved themselves extremely good supports for climbing roses.
It
was the Jacques's grandmother who gave him his first lesons, as a boy, in budding
roses on wild rootstocks gathered from the hedgerows of the family farm. New
dawn and Mme Isaac Pereire were the first varieties he worked on-and among the
first roses planted in the garden.
Over the years they have sought to create three 'gardens within
the garden':
- an English-style garden first of all, in part of the original pasture. This
area is made up of some sixteen different island beds, all with mixed plantings
of roses, shrubs and herbaceous plants.
- a French-style garden with a geometrical layout in the old cidder-apple orchard.
here the roses are displayed according to the different types, in beds that
are separated bya 'maze' of tall herbaceous plants and summer-flowering shrubs.
- in the old potager, modelled on monastery gardens, four beds in a checkerboard
pattern planted with plants for medecine, dyes and scent. For lack of space
(and also for lack of visitor-interest) the first of these checkerboards has
of this year been replaced by 32 polyantha roses. And some of the squares of
medecinal plants have been moved elsewhere....
The old orchard of eating-apples is losing out gradually to roses and herbaceous
plants. It already houses a bed of Noisette roses, another one of Gallicas,
and a third one of Bourbons roses, as well the owners' own home-produce garden.
This winter it has been enlarged by the addition of a bed of Rugosa roses and
a collection roses- little known in France- of roses from the Hungarian breeder
Geschwind. All being well, this part of the garden will also acquire about another
100 Gallicas that have never been propagated commercially, some 75 Moss roses
and about 50 Bourbons.
Space is becoming rather a problem...
A Bit of history by Dominique et Jacques.
It was et the end of the 1970s that Dominique and Jacques set their hearts
on the ruined farmhouse in the "bocage" near Vire. the house had
the remains of a thatched roof but gave shelter only to cows, calves, chickens
and an enormous number of rats and mice. the land-about one hectare (2 1/2
acres)- was open to the south and partially enclosed by traditional "bocage"
hedging. The only trees were one pear and about ten cider-apples. Nevertheless,
the owners realised that, with enthusiasm and taste, they could make it into
a holiday home that would become their main house when eventually they retired.
In 1985, they planted their first roses,a foretaste of what was to become,
twenty years later, a haven of different scents and colours, and eventually
develop into the most important privately-owned collection of old roses in
France.
