VINTAGE MEDITERRANEAN ST

set that recalls her origins in Provence, but with a backdrop of the Kent countryside rather than the Mediterranean. Her mother, the Comtesse de Bouvier de Cachard, came from the south of France, so that part of the world is Sophie’s heartland. It’s also the home of her gardening guru, Nicole de Vésian; Modern Design in Provence, the book about her (by Louisa Jones), is Sophie’s bible. De Vésian, who used to work as a designer for Hermès, moved from Paris, widowed and retired, to a hilltop village in Bonnieux, (near where Sophie’s father lives in the Luberon). She created a garden, La Louve, which has grown into a work of art, a study in how to use a restricted palette of colour and form. La Louve is a fascinating tableau of clipped topiary balls, cones and evergreen pillars of box, lavender, santolina, bay and myrtle, in a colour palette of greens and greys. Interspersed with simple statuary in local blond stone, the garden mimics the maquis shrubland of the Mediterranean region with style and elegance. I was interested to see how such simplicity fared under French style: antique dealer Sophie Norton (above left) has looked to Nicole De Vésian’s celebrated garden, La Louve in Provence, above, to create her beautiful courtyard in Kent, top grey English skies, without the faded subtlety that lights up the south of France. It works, maybe because Sophie’s space is small – about 60ft x 30ft – and light is diffused by the surrounding courtyard buildings, like a stage set, impeccably designed, styled and directed by Sophie. She has been singleminded and only allowed plants that fit. Most of us put up with the odd wrong plant in the wrong place, usually for sentimental reasons, but in such a limited plot, Sophie believes she has to be exact. I did admire a lovely pink anemone, but its days are numbered. The garden was originally home to giant tree ferns and badly placed Italian cypress that struggled in the damp, rich soil. It had a weedy central lawn with broken brick paving, which has been replaced with pink granite cobblestones, some from local reclamation yards and the rest from eastern Europe. The spaces in between, an important element in a garden such as this, are gravelled with Canterbury spar multitoned stone chippings (available from decorativeaggregates.com). Sophie has introduced a few of her own touches: a central pond with a fountain; cloud topiary conifers; and a huge laurel that has had the leaves stripped from its lower stems. Stunning Vitax purpurea with purple stems and undersides to its leaves (from Palmstead Nurseries) and two standard olive trees are placed in pots in the wings. Coloured flowers are kept to a minimum. There’s lavender, obviously; echium for their magnificent showiness; cardoons, artichokes and echinops for their architectural elegance (in pots, so they can be moved backstage once their starring role is over); and agapanthus and Verbena bonariensis that pop up between trimmed pittosporum, bay, rosemary, purple sage, artemisia. And clipped box, everywhere. It’s all kept in check by constant attention with shears (from niwaki.com), though apart from the snipping, once planted, a garden of this style and scale could be fairly low-maintenance. Sophie often works on the antique pieces she buys, restoring them to bring them back to life. She feels lucky to own them for a short time, and then pleased to find them good homes. She buys early 19thcentury cherry-picking