This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

2023-10-27

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.
This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

01

While traveling in France, I accidentally discovered city of flowers.

The name of city is Shediny. It is small, probably because of rain. When we were driving, there were not many tourists in town. The high spire of church, quiet stone houses, clear river rushing under vicissitudes of stone bridge... town is very quiet, which reminds me of Cotswolds in England. Roses and other flowers and plants are planted not only in front of and behind every house in city, but rose bushes are planted on all sidewalks and ramps.

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

Corner of Schedini

There are many varieties of roses, roses and roses. There are many varieties of roses alone, many of which I have never seen before. They all have thick spikes and clusters of pink, pink, purple and even multi-colored flowers, each of which exudes a strong fragrance.

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.
Photo: Brother A Chai

Compared to bush roses, vine roses and roses have advantage of being able to climb walls and railings. Many houses here are planted with climbing vine roses, and hundreds of densely packed buds have grown on branches. I can't help but imagine spectacular sight when they are in full bloom.

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

There are not many tourists in small town of Sidini and roses are open

More rarely, every flower branch in town has a black plaque detailing name and growing time of rose, rose, or rose. Therefore, every time I come across a particularly beautiful flower, I will write down its name so that when I return to China, I will learn about these varieties and find their seedlings. Colorful flags are fluttering on side of city - in a few days Rose Festival will be held here, and you don’t need to think about it, what a grandiose and lively spectacle it will be.

02

After returning to my residence, I carefully checked relevant information on Internet and found that Cedini was an ordinary city with a permanent population of only 550 people.

Since 1998, local authorities have replaced all overhead cables with underground ones to make city look more livable. But that was only beginning. The mayor and his wife at that time were very fond of roses, especially old-fashioned classic roses. In order to make city better, city specially invited rose specialists to accompany and encouraged all residents to join hands In front of house and behind house, more than 700 roses were planted. rose bushes. These bright roses will soon make village more beautiful and charming. By now, there are already more than 800 rose bushes, roses and rose bushes in this small town, more than 280 varieties in total.

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.
Photo: Brother A Chai

Beautiful flowers bloom everywhere in city. Every weekend from end of May to beginning of June, Xiedini will hold a rose festival to spread this beauty to more people. Many tourists will come here with admiration. A real garden village, a city of roses, has turned here.

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

Beautiful flowers bloom everywhere in city

You can see from promotional materials that Cedini is still a flower city with "four flowers". The "Flower City" was jointly selected by French National Assembly, city councils, tourism departments and French National Horticultural Society (SNHF) for towns and villages across country. The choice takes whole town or city as a big garden, and there are four levels of "one flower", "two flowers", "three flowers" and "four flowers" - highest honor is four flowers. For each flower town, flowers are brightest and most authentic label. Most flower towns have a high level of horticulture, and residents who live in them are generally of a high aesthetic level.

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

This is logo of "Flower City" or "Flower City", and landscape value of city can be judged by number of small red flowers on it.

03

France's "Flower City" judging is very strict, with judges representing government agencies, tourism departments, horticultural departments and environmental agencies. The selection criteria are as follows: natural landscapes and plant heritage of city, such as trees, shrubs, flowers and other cover plants, account for 50%; local government efforts to improve living environment and long-term development, degree of investment and environmental sanitation, etc., account for 30%, growth rate of tourism, education development, citizen participation and sensitivity, etc. account for 20%.

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

By beginning of 2017, most of French municipalities had applied to participate in selection of flower cities. Out of approximately 4,000 cities a total of 236 municipalities have been honored with four colors. , such as famous cities of Giverny, Colmar, Evian, etc. There are 1058 of them in City of Three Flowers, and even more in Erduoshua and City of Single Flower. The one-in-a-million selection is very strict, so it can be seen that four flowers are enough to make locals feel supremely revered. Currently, region with most four-color cities is spa town of Brittany and Greater Paris Region, each with 21 four-color cities; in Loire Valley there are 20 cities with four colors. - cities of flowers in Alsace-Lorraine region, 12 in Normandy region and 8 in southern region of Côte d'Azur. This data changes every year and every year four new flower cities or special prizes are launched.

Among flower cities I visited, there are four cities with four flowers that I really like——

City of four colors in Aegisan

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

This small town in Alsace region of northeastern France is located at foot of a mountain. In 2013, it was named most beautiful city in France. The city was founded in Middle Ages, and more than 1000 years ago Pope Leo IX was born here. To this day, city still retains a strong medieval flavor with colorful buildings, narrow grassy streets, a circular layout centered on a church, and a romantic style that mixes German and French, attracting large numbers of tourists from all over world every week. year.

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

Balcony in residential area of ​​Sang in Egypt. Europeans know how to use flowers and flower stands to plant flowers and plants in all places that can be decorated.

The city is also famous Alsace vineyard region, surrounded by neatly planted vineyards, with large tracts of vines intertwined with each other and stretch far into distance. The city is known as "cradle of Alsatian wine". Compared to good wine, I prefer to look at flowers on both sides of road. They are everywhere in sight, from window sills to wooden railings, steps and under a canopy. Variegated flowers vie for bloom with bright flowers. Sun. The most common flowers are geraniums, petunias, hexagrams, etc. Caring for them, friendly townspeople calmly and reverently spend their days among melodious church bells...

Colmar, city of four colors

Colmar is capital of Rhine Province of Alsace region, wine-producing center of Alsace, and inspiration for Howl's Moving Castle by Japanese animation artist Hayao Miyazaki. Compared to small town of Aegisan, Colmar has long been known and can be considered a lively small town. Since Colmar is located at crossroads of France and Germany, urban architecture of Colmar has a pronounced German architectural style, for example, a wooden log house built in 16th century is still preserved here. This half-timbered residential style was very common in medieval Europe and was most concentrated and visible in Germany. Wooden houses are quintessence of Colmar's urban architecture. Each timber-framed house is completely different in shape, color and layout, but they all look exquisite, do not conflict with each other and complement each other. .

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

Corner of Colmar

When I arrived, Colmar was full of tourists, flowers were strewn on both sides of canal, and whole city looked alive. Flowers and plants are usually planted in flower pots in a combined way. It actually rains a lot in France, but most of flowers and plants chosen to decorate streets are relatively drought-resistant, mostly hanging petunias and geraniums, supplemented by other small annual flowers and plants such as snowflakes, viola trifoliate, Lubeil, Begonia Rieger and etc. When I was walking along old alley, I saw soft flower branches and fresh flowers plucked from flower pots on balconies of houses on both sides, hanging in wind, similar to multi-colored tassels - - I felt like falling into a fairy-tale wonderland.

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

City of Four Flowers, Boulogne-sur-Mer

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

This is a seaside resort for French.

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

Source: "AirFrance" Wechat account

Boulogne-sur-Mer is an ancient small town in Pas de Calais region in northwestern France. It used to be first fishing port and most avant-garde bathing town in France. The city is bounded by ancient city wall and is divided into an upper city and a lower city. The upper town is located on a hill, and there are many old buildings, such as a castle built in 13th century, a town hall and an 18th century church. Boulogne-sur-Mer is rightfully considered a flower city of four colors: central square of Upper Town is not dotted with shops, but is entirely occupied by gardens. In summer we visited, several small gardens were put up in center of square, each with its own unique theme: some were planted with vegetables and flowers; ordinary garden tables and chairs, next to which sausages were dried on a vegetable field. for them are very realistic, some have feeling of a garden installation that looks very meaningful.

Location of Monet's Garden - small town of Giverny

Located in small town of Giverny, about 70 kilometers west of Paris, it is famous for former residence and garden of famous Impressionist master Claude Monet. The garden was planted when Monet was 50 years old. Monet lived in this beautiful garden until his death, where his famous painting "Water Lilies" was born.

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

The coffee shop in small town of Giverny is also full of flowers and plants outside coffee shop

I prefer wandering around city to this famous garden. In this four-level town, apart from Monet's garden, other places are still very quiet. Walking along streets of town, you will see quaint stone walls, empty stone houses and mallow trees that lean against stone walls and flowers grow from cracks. There are also many garden plants precious to us in town, but here they seem wild: pink and white Campanula Canterbury Bell swaying in corner, blue-violet vines squeezing out of cracks in stone Bells, blue bells with oblique shadows, dazzling yellow various Compositae plants ... They seem to be masters of nature here, blooming easily and gracefully, without much care from people.

●○●

"Everyone pretends to understand my art, discussing it as if they should understand it. In fact, you only need to understand love," Monet once commented to people who talked about his art.

Isn't it same for gardens? As long as there is love, this is enough, and so much professional knowledge is not needed, this is also my constant understanding of gardens.

Continue reading:

FlowerGarden Collection Gardening Lecture Hall (Hangzhou Station)

cum East China Horticulture Experience Sharing Meeting

Validity: September 27-28, 2018

(1) Gardening Lecture Hall

Active time: 27.09.2018

Venue: Hangzhou Blue Sky Clear Water Bay International Hotel (No. 37, Lianhuafeng Road, West Lake District, Hangzhou, near Yuhuangshan Road)

Guest Exchange:

Hou ZhuangDean of Shanghai Bide Institute of Design >>Overall Theme: The Essence of Courtyard Landscaping

Li ShurenExecutive Vice President of Hangzhou Landscaping Co., Ltd. >>General Topic: Garden Landscape Effect Evaluation System

Huang MingqiangPresident of Hangzhou Huangyuan Garden Landscape Co., Ltd. >>General Theme: Three Musketeers Gardening

Lecture Schedule:

Morning:

10:00-11:00 Minqiang Huang "Three Musketeers" in gardening

11:00-12:00 "Garden Landscape Effect Rating System" by Lee Shouren

Day:

13:30-15:30 Hou Zhuang "The essence of landscape gardening"

15:30-16:10 Zheng Jifeng "Positioning and development of private horticultural enterprises"

16:10–17:30 Seminar: "Pain points and solutions for garden industry"

Sponsor:

Garden Collection Club

Dedicated Support:

Aitao Miao agricultural technology, Di'anhao Aluminum Art villa fencing, Dingj intelligent lighting systemi-Garden, Haishi materials (permanent set...)

Co-host:

Huangyuan Garden, Caoyueliu, Juyi Landscape, Hackberry Garden, Shenghe Garden, Cocoa Landscape, Southern Garden.

Participation fee:

There is an AA fee of RMB 480 per person. (including lunch and dinner)

Registration link:

QR-code after successful registration will be used as a certificate of admission

Registration consultation: Garden Group Zijun 15295603227, Garden Jimingyue 18051732890 (same WeChat number)

(2) Exclusive inspection trip for Garden Group members

Duration:2018.09.28 8:30 Gathering

Inspection Location: Hangzhou Courtyard Company's works and property samples (specific itinerary to be determined)

Members:

Participation is free for Garden Collection Club members

Non-members of Huayuanji Club participate in inspection and an additional inspection fee of 800 RMB is required

Participation Fee:Payment is AA and participants share bus and meal costs equally

This modest French town has turned into a romantic rose garden in 20 years.

[Scan QR code below and follow the official Huayuanji account]

Contribution email: 99071516@qq.com

QQ/WeChat business cooperation 99071516

Contact 0512-68786890