Howick Hall Gardens – garden of the year?

In the UK last week, we visited Howick Hall, a beautiful 18th century stone property near the Northumberland coast. Its extensive grounds have won several awards and have just been chosen as “garden of the year” by the magazine Gardens Illustrated. Perhaps the accolade raised our expectations a little too high. Photographs suggest that in [...]

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Trouble at the Tuileries

I have just written an article for Gardens and People on the extraordinary 1990 proposals by Bernard Lassus to reinvent the Jardin des Tuileries. They were an entry in a state-run competition and, sadly, a less adventurous plan by Louis Benech and Pascal Cribier was chosen for implementation. My article is part of a series [...]

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Cool plants for hot days

The gardens of the Hotel Biron are currently a sea of creamy hydrangeas and soft green foliage. A few weeks ago I posted on the lush roses and paeonies that filled the grounds in June. It appeared to be the peak of the summer. But now everywhere is a mass of lacecaps and mopheads, all [...]

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Rainbows and daisies

At one of the side entrances to l’Eglise Saint Germain des Prés in the 6th arrondissement are four little box-edged flower beds. This summer, one of them is thickly planted with rainbow-stemmed swiss chard, pink cosmos and dahlias. (There are also some rather unnecessary, straggly standard roses.) My daughter and I stood for a few [...]

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Ecole des Beaux-Arts

The Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts was established in the seventeenth century and, in its heyday, was an enormously influential school for architects, painters and sculptors throughout the world. Its alumnae include Degas, Delacroix, Givenchy, Monet and Mary Cassatt. Its current home in the 6th arrondissement was built on the site of an early seventeenth [...]

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Tennis à l’anglaise

With Wimbledon in full swing, I am reminded that there is a solitary grass tennis court in Paris. It is located, perhaps not surprisingly, in the gardens of the British Embassy in the 8th arrondissement of the city. The French, of course, prefer clay courts. The Embassy court is used by staff and visitors – [...]

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Roses and Rodin

Someone asked me the other day about “secret” places in Paris, where it would be fun to take visitors. One of my suggestions was the garden of the Hôtel Biron in the 7th arrondissement. OK, so the building is not exactly a secret, as it currently serves as the musée Rodin, which receives about half [...]

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