Travel Stories: Jardin de Sericourt, France 2019

June 29, 2019 Susan

After leaving Jardin Plume (see previous blog post), our group headed north to visit Jardin de Sericourt. I had learned of this amazing garden by watching Monty Don’s video series, “The Gardens of France” and am so glad I included this in our itinerary.

This garden has received France’s “Remarkable garden” status and was voted best garden of 2012 by the Association of French Journalists. (and since I’m a garden journalist, I have to say we’re a pretty particular bunch so you know this garden is special!)

It was designed by Yves Gosse de Gorre in 1985 so it’s a relatively young garden. I had never been there before but it certainly came highly recommended.

To be honest, when I first learned of this garden, I was slightly hesitant to include it because there is a focus on war in some of the garden rooms. But I quickly realized this region of France was so impacted by World War I and II that one certainly shouldn’t close their eyes to it. And my goal as I put together this tour was to choose gardens of very different character, so this met my criteria.

The garden is on approximately 10 acres and there are 29 garden rooms with different themes. Examples include the warrior garden which features columns of yews to represent soldiers; craters that represent the bomb craters that scarred this region during the war; a battlefield with red poppies to represent the blood spilled; the cathedral of roses; a topiary garden; the geometric garden; a labyrinth of grasses; a perennial garden, and the water garden.

One particularly moving area of the garden (see photo to left) had small clipped shrubs to represent the children left behind following the war, complete with a weeping cherry tree behind them. It didn’t take much to understand the meaning of this display and feel the impact of it.