Plant Consultancy & Drought Management

There are many more possibilities for a garden in the Mediterranean than lawns, oleanders and palm trees. The Mediterranean garden can be made up from a palette of thousands of plant species native to the different Mediterranean regions of the world.

Selections can be made to enhance different garden themes and, when given the right care in the first year, the plants could survive well with little or no watering thereafter.

Whatever the style and size of your garden, there are water-wise plants to fulfil your needs. Acting responsibly with water use, especially in the Mediterranean, is the basis for a healthy and manageable garden.

Where to start in choosing plants?

We have a strong understanding of choosing plants and planting new gardens, as well as adjusting existing gardens to more balanced Mediterranean and water wise schemes. Choices can be made to fit into existing or new garden styles, formal, informal, rural or urban. We are available as consultants to give advice to clients and guide their gardeners in planting and care. Additionally, we can prepare planting schemes and execute their plantations and then direct the client’s maintenance personnel.

The planting of rosemary and teucrium (shown below) provides a formal setting at the main entrance of a house. The exposed location faces south east and suffers every extreme of summer and winter weather. The previous planting of equally Mediterranean plants - box hedging (Buxus) and citrus trees experienced many years of problems caused by the exposure and the weather. This scheme has been in the ground for three years and apart from twice annual clipping and one or two waterings in the most extreme heat and drought periods of the summer, has happily been trouble free.

Watering or Irrigation?

Even drought resistant plants need careful attention when they are young. For example, planting in early autumn will give them a chance to put down roots in the milder, wetter season of the Mediterranean year.

Whatever type of garden and plant choices are planned, watering techniques will need to be considered. In Provence experienced growers have spent years testing techniques for the reduction of watering, in particular with the use of drought resistant plants.

They have found that infrequent, deep watering is more beneficial, and without sprinklers - which leave the foliage humid and this is detrimental to many plants. The shaping of the soil into a watering basin around the plant and watering each plant individually once every ten days supplies water evenly and only to the roots and not to the weeds nearby.

At La Mouissone we have both very sandy free-draining soil, which will not hold water for very long, and other areas of dense clay. This quirk of nature has presented us with the opportunity to learn many watering lessons! The clay areas need very little watering throughout the summer, and could be non-beneficial for some plants in the winter. Much can be learned from looking at those plants or weeds that grow without human intervention to see the conditions they prefer.

We can offer much well-informed advice on watering, but would recommend other experts for the installation of irrigation systems.

Is a lawn always necessary?

At La Mouissone, we have several lawns - it is true. They were there when we bought the place, and we are English and somehow cannot give them up entirely.

However, we are gradually looking at the whole concept of having lawns everywhere. We know to our personal cost financially, and stress-wise, that lawns are hard work and expensive - and more so in the South of France. We have finely kept lawns near the two houses, and as one moves away the watering is cut out completely, and the surfaces are often replaced with gravel, or plants. On some terraces we have experimental planting schemes, such as a lavender garden (being renewed this winter), a bamboo garden, a prairie garden, as well as rockeries and beds. In these areas watering is often limited to only the most extreme hot periods of the summer.

We have a long experience of the laying and maintenance of lawns and equally have many suggestions for achieving a low green carpet of other plants which may be more drought tolerant and need much less care.

A ‘natural’ terrace at La Mouissone in April (shown above) - with two groups of Lagerstroemia planted by a previous owner. We keep the path mowed all year, even when it is a little brown in the summer; and we enjoy the surprises Mother Nature sends us - field anemones, muscari, star of Bethlehem, field orchids, clover, and countless others. We never treat the terrace, dig it, water it or plant in it. It always looks good!

To book our team

For Expert advice, please contact:
(i) Cyril, Head Gardener:
(i) Maggie Lockett: ...