We are gardening on a terraced, south-facing slope. The soil is a good loam, rather silty, on heavy yellow clay. Generally the topsoil is surprisingly deep, but it does bake hard in summer.
The minimum temperature recorded at Chatillon sur Saone is -20 C; we probably came close to that in our first winter of 2011/2012.
The house looks down the slope to the Apance River, which joins the Saone at the edge of the village. Concrete steps run down the centre of the garden with terraces and sloping gardens off to either side. Apart from the original terracing and the steps (which must have been made between 1950 and 1980), the structure of the garden was created by the previous owner, Dutch sculptor Marcel Julius Joosen. The garden has tremendous natural charm, borrowed from its surroundings, but much of what is beautiful in 2013 is a wonderful legacy from Marcel, for which we will always be grateful. When he arrived here 'there was not a flat surface on which to stand a table'. Since he was looking for space to display his sculptures, he was forced to solve this problem; courtesy of his hard work, we now have three flat terraces to either side of our main pathway. These are: the Mirror Garden, the Vine Terrace, and Musha's Garden (which we used to call the Iris Garden).
Sadly, the rest is just a twinkle in the eye, but we hope you will look back at our website occasionally and watch our progress.
Take a walk down through the existing garden, starting at the top near the house: [Note: apologies, this site is still under construction, so not much of the garden yet!}
The minimum temperature recorded at Chatillon sur Saone is -20 C; we probably came close to that in our first winter of 2011/2012.
The house looks down the slope to the Apance River, which joins the Saone at the edge of the village. Concrete steps run down the centre of the garden with terraces and sloping gardens off to either side. Apart from the original terracing and the steps (which must have been made between 1950 and 1980), the structure of the garden was created by the previous owner, Dutch sculptor Marcel Julius Joosen. The garden has tremendous natural charm, borrowed from its surroundings, but much of what is beautiful in 2013 is a wonderful legacy from Marcel, for which we will always be grateful. When he arrived here 'there was not a flat surface on which to stand a table'. Since he was looking for space to display his sculptures, he was forced to solve this problem; courtesy of his hard work, we now have three flat terraces to either side of our main pathway. These are: the Mirror Garden, the Vine Terrace, and Musha's Garden (which we used to call the Iris Garden).
Sadly, the rest is just a twinkle in the eye, but we hope you will look back at our website occasionally and watch our progress.
Take a walk down through the existing garden, starting at the top near the house: [Note: apologies, this site is still under construction, so not much of the garden yet!}