Keeping it in the family today – here’s a radical and exciting garden in France, photographed and described by Charles Hawes. Flugscham.

Les Jardins d’Étretat , a review, photographed and written by Charles Hawes

Visited May 2018

This was a garden unknown to me. Anne had been invited by their PR person Anna Zakharova, to an expenses paid press trip in April to celebrate a year of the garden opening to the public and the installation of “an inflatable trampoline in the Rococo style” by the Russian artist Sasha Frolova.  Anne’s reluctance to travel outside the UK is legendary, whereas I get giddy at the idea of free trips abroad. So I wrote to Anna to saying could I come in her place but a little later in the year. She was happy to oblige.

I had a very brief glance at the website before going. In fact I don’t recall reading either of the Press Releases that were attached to Anne’s invite. If I had, I might have felt a little apprehensive. Reading it now I am informed that the trampoline is modelled on the boudoir of Marie-Antoinette, (really? That must have been some strange room). And that the first ever oyster farms were established at Étretat, and they supplied the Queen of France’s table.  The seaside theme is the important thing here as it informs quite a lot of what is featured in the garden.

Etretat is a seaside resort on the Normandy coast just north of Le Havre. The gardens are in situated in woodland near the top of the chalk cliffs, where a platform has an effigy of Claude Monet at his easel and from where there is a superb view of the famous Needle of this part of the Alabaster Coast.

In fact, the Press Release says that it was from “the very terraces of the Jardins that (he) painted his Cliffs of Étretat series”.  I think not. At least, I don’t see how he could since I understand that the series of 50 paintings was done in 1885 and we are told that the first tree of the garden was planted in 1903.  Having said that, there are some paintings in the series that might well have been painted very close to where the garden is, so perhaps we’ll allow a little artistic licence.  But I digress.

The gardens (and the villa) were commissioned by an actress called Madame Thebault, who was said to be inspired by Monet’s own garden ideas. I am ignorant of Monet’s attitude to gardening, though I can say that there are no ponds in the gardens at Étretat and hence an absence of waterlilies.

There are, however, lots of orchids in beds next to the paths, which Madame Thebault is said to have loved and “which in her imagination symbolised the harem of Sultan Suleiman” (the villa, called Roxelana, is named after the Sultan’s wife).

Imagination and symbolism are key concepts that inform these gardens.

I don’t know how much remains of Madame Thebault’s garden, but my story now fast-forwards to the involvement of a Russian landscape architect called Alexander Grivko who has somehow taken this site over since 2015 and “recreated the historical landscape”. Perhaps re-interpreted, or re-modelled might be more accurate. In any event, they opened to the public in their current form in September 2016.

I was blessed with two sunny days on my visits. In normal circumstances my heart sinks when trying to photograph a garden in bright sunlight, the contrast between light and shadows being too much for the camera to handle. But the tree canopy over the garden softened this light considerably whilst leaving some exciting light and, looking up, made for some super backlit images.

Just inside the entrance, suspended from the trees and above tightly clipped mounds of evergreen shrubs was a massive shell -inspired artwork by Russian artist Alena Kogan, made from white plastic stretched over a wire cage. I thought it more worm than shell-like but I liked its white body amongst the greenery. Beyond here the steep valley side was lined with clipped hedges of Phillyrea angustifolia, the hedges separated by narrow paths to allow the gardeners access.

From below these hedges coalesce to make a horizontally striped wall of green. “Clever”, I thought, and not something that I had seen before. 

Looking around, it seemed that all the shrubs in sight had been clipped in some way. Below me a family of life-size figures made of reeds were playing amongst blobs and mounds of foliage.

Holly, rhododendron, elaeagnus, yew, all tightly clipped and controlled. If you like topiary, and I do, this was topiary heaven.

Below the terraced lines of hedges (called Le Jardin Parnasse) was an area (le Jardin des bruits de la nature) I didn’t like, though. In fact the more time I spent there, the more I hated it. The clue is in the name. 

Suspended from the trees were terracotta spindles, swinging slightly in the breeze.

Nothing wrong (or particularly right) with that, but they were doing so to a looped soundtrack from hidden speakers of some recitation in Japanese (I guessed) accompanied by a very irritating, whiney noise.

By the time I had finished photographing this area I felt like I was being subject to torture (as opposed appreciating that the garden was “bringing language, science and art closer together”. ) Sadly, this was not the only part of the garden where there was a soundtrack, though the other was less intrusive.

The only other garden that I have been to with a soundtrack was at one of the Chaumont Gardens Festival gardens. In fact, thinking about this, there are other echoes of Chaumont here, one being the somewhat wacky art installations, and another being the heavy use of symbolism. I checked with Anna about this and apparently the designer of the garden has not been there. I reckon he’d love it.

At Etretat, though, the quality of the workmanship (and the gardening) is vastly superior to anything that I have seen at Chaumont. The area called Le Jarden Emotions exemplifies this.

This has to be the most impressive and I would say most technically accomplished area of topiary I have ever seen. Mounds of box and enkianthus, divided by neat gravel paths, are clipped into shell forms that surround grotesque heads, the faces of which are said to carry various emotions.

To my eye, the faces were at best parodies of emotion and I found them off-putting, repulsive even – best viewed from behind where the round black forms contrasted well with the green topiarised surroundings. I was overwhelmed with admiration for the gardener’s art, though.  It must regularly take hours of careful work to maintain these shapes.

Next to this, below the Monet platform was, perhaps, the pièce de résistance of the whole place in the Jardin Elements.

Here, sculpted hedges of Phillyrea angustifolia, edged with the tiny-leaved Muehlenbeckia complexa (used throughout the garden and a rather lovely plant) form a tight spiral – no doubt another shell reference. It is beautifully done and deserves to be identified and applauded as a work of art in its own right.

Whoever clips this and maintains it should be identified by name(s) and a sculpture in some suitable organic material erected in their honour.

It is a truly wonderful feature, worth the visit to see this alone.

Throughout my visit, grey uniformed gardeners (five, I think) were hard at work with their two-stroke machines. The level of maintenance is very high. As is the quality of the hard landscaping: the walls, paving and steps are textbook perfect.

 In addition to the clipping, all the paths are blown free of leaf debris daily. (You could do this at Veddw? ed.)

 I even saw one gardener wiping down the entrance gates.

The loos are spotless.

Was this the best garden that I visited last year? Well it’s a tough call between this and Bury Court, where I was wowed by their grasses. There are wows aplenty here, though. I just wish they would turn the sound off.

Avenue Damilaville, 76790 Étretat, France Open 10.00 – 18.00

Charles Hawes

You can find more of Charles’ images of Les Jardins d’Étretat at Gap photos https://www.gapphotos.com/featuredetails.asp?view=les-jardins-detretat-&featureref=3705

and his walking blog is at https://charleshawes.veddw.com/

His own garden is, of course, https://veddw.com/