BRANCH OUT
When you’re next pruning your trees, bushes, grapevines or soft fruit canes, don’t throw away the trimmings.
Practical inspiration from Les Jardin du Prieure Notre-Dame d’Orsan in the Berry region of central France shows how they can be used to create all sorts of attractive and useful features for the garden. A former monastery and listed historical monument, the Prieure d’Orsan was established in 1107, and the Gardens now combine symbolic landscape creation and organic crop production.
I’m particularly fond of gardens that fill the air with a patina of age and ooze rustic character. A pilgrimage to the priory (in the footsteps of Monty Don) was therefore top of my horticulture bucket list.
Travelling the French countryside en route was a delight in itself, with cowslip- and bluebell-covered roadside banks and chalky Charolais cattle chewing contentedly on their meadow cud. After passing through buttermilk-coloured stone villages and vast ancient agricultural fields, a discrete sign on an ancient wooden door finally beckoned me into the garden.
Early bird song filled the air as I stepped over the threshold. Immediately, the delicacy and intimacy of both the buildings and garden gave an all pervading sense of calm, as if for a moment you might have stepped through a portal back to a preindustrial time, still captured by the memories of meditative monks. A modern interpretation of a medieval monastic garden, the Prieuré is set within the gorgeous stone walls and clustered buildings of the priory of Fontevriste founded by Robert d’Arbrissel.
The brainchild of design geniuses and architects Sonia Lesot and Patrice Taravella, the garden reflects the dual purposes typical of monastic gardens from the Middle Ages – to nourish body and mind. This is evident throughout the garden in its stimulation of all five senses.
Every element of the garden is imbued with meaning and echoes back to its medieval inspiration.
Materials reflect traditional approaches to locally sourced resources for use in the garden structures.
The key to the garden’s character is the use of tree material in structures elevated to artistic forms, and the training of living branches layered like arboricultural calligraphy. Stems and branches are twisted and clipped to form a cohesive pattern of filigree that embraces the garden rooms, and creates a sense of order and calm, framing the wildness that froths at the edges of the formality.
This sense of calm is heightened by the use of natural materials that connect the garden spaces. Cleft chestnut, woven hazel, lichen-covered rocks, and rusty metal and zinc combine into small surprises of detail throughout the garden.
The garden is also a haven for wildlife. Bees move in and out of the whimsical bee hotels hanging on the stone walls, lizards sunbathe on doorsteps and butterflies abound. All this activity acts out under a chorus of meadow and woodland birds.
Deceptively small in size, you can get lost within the intersecting pathways that guide through the subtly separate garden rooms. It highlights how using natural materials achieves practical results while adding interest, structure and a delightful patina to a garden. The creative use of branches is a playful way to balance order and formality with the exuberance of nature.
The art of weaving branches or cut saplings into structures is not new. Farmers have always used local resources to create fencing and shelter for their animals. This essential early craft now inspires a reinterpretation of thrifty hand-crafted elements.
The first upcycle I successfully attempted in my own vegetable garden this season was simply branch trimmings stuck into the ground to create a rustic support for peas.
Next on the list will be more ambitious and complex garden structures such as climbing plant tepees and a garden gate.
The unending potential for creative reuse ensures I will continue to look with new eyes at this years’ tree prunings. What would normally be composted or mulched will be added to the stack of branches slowly building up for future hand-crafting projects.