200 plants

200 plants on our bathroom window cill

All looking very healthy with strong stems and green shoots

Maureen takes great pride in the garden of les Deux Platanes and our own garden although I appear to take on the responsibility of chief plant watering person during the year! This week we have been to the garden nursery and bought nearly 200 plants for the baskets, pots and flower borders, an increase from previous years so I can only presume the garden will be even more glorious than normal? 2012 is the year of the Queens Diamond Jubilee celebrations so parts of the garden will take on a red white and blue theme. We have also bought a number of new rose bushes which together with new planting undertaken in 2010 & 2011 should look very attractive.

Watering all the plants is not a job for the faint hearted and last year we were using about 110 litres of water per day just for the flowering plants and bushes which is a bit extravagant to say the least. This year we are going to resurrect our automatic drip feed irrigation system which, although it takes a lot of work to set up, uses far less water and delivers the water to the plant rather than the surrounding soil. 2012 also promises to be a dry year so using less water from our well will be important.

I have recently added a few new links to our gite website, the link to the Abbey of Fontevreau, (Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Richard are interred there) is particularly informative with lots of detail to help with holiday planning.

My good friend and neighbour Michel presented me with a very nice 1.5 litre bottle of 2008 Saint Nicolas-de-Bourgueil  and during a recent meal with friends in the UK we opened the bottle! It was an excellent wine to accompany a very well prepared Beef bourguignon, Maureen took a few tips from the Michelin chef Raymond Blanc and it was indeed a bourguignon sublime!

Thank you Michel