Garden & Grounds | Chez Le Moulin

Garden

Approached along a tree lined driveway, that runs beside the mill stream, Le Moulin was until 1976 a working watermill and boulangerie set within a farm. The property retains some of the land, which is now all gardens and woodland.

Bed & breakfast with beautiful gardens in Haute Garonne

To the front, the garden contains some specimens of rare maples and a group of silver birch centred around a copper beach planted in 2018. There are shrubs and old fruit trees, including cherry, fig and Sharon fruit. This is also home to our ducks who love to follow you about. Around the front door and to the side of the house some flower beds provide a big splash of colour and cut flowers throughout the summer for the house and dining tables.

Terraces and Vegetable Garden

The terraces at the rear of the house covered in pot plants and flowers through the summer, have two casual seating areas and a fire pit. This is a lovely place to relax, for star watching on summer nights, or to pass a lazy afternoon with a book and a cool drink. We grow our lemon and orange trees here, which give off a wonderful scent in the early evening.

Set among the raised vegetable beds under the pergola the large out door table seats up to ten. Twinkling fairy lights and candles on summer evenings give it a magical air for our dinner service. This ‘potager’ is home to many of the vegetables used in our meals. The pergola supports Kiwi, grape vines, cucumbers and melon. The raised beds are filled with herbs salads and roots, aubergines tomatoes and peppers.

In 2020, with lockdown in full swing, we decided to extend the vegetable growing and make ourselves even more self-sufficient. We added two in ground vegetable beds beyond the pergola, stretching into the orchard area. One of these is now filled with fruit bushes. The other will continue to be part of our crop rotation for the vegetable garden.

The Meadow and Barrage Walk

A beautiful tree lined walk, from the rear of the house, takes you along the raised bank that follows the mill stream under the arched canopy. After the trees have blossomed the start of this walk is a shady place for our hammocks beside the pool. At the far end of the walk you reach the barrage, where the mill stream separates from the river Nére. This forms a large pool teaming with fish and is home to otters, kingfishers and many other visitors. The grass bank which once provided a place to bring the cows to drink from the river is now a quiet and secluded area to watch the river flow by or fish.

Wandering back through the water meadow you will find paths cut through the long grass, so you can really appreciate the abundance of wild flowers that grow here. Our boundary hedge has a number of mature oak trees and well worn paths made by deer, badger and the beech martins. Our plan to enhance the land has lead to us taking out much of the old fencing which divided the land for domestic animals, allowing hedge plants to grow and encouraging naturally seeded saplings.

Returning past the house and crossing over the road the mill stream continues for another 400m through woodland with a pretty path to a seating area. This area is a natural woodland with a single track through the centre. Along the path are lots of woodland edge flowers, including blue bells, snow drops, daffodils and carpets of the tiny purple violets that are the flower of Toulouse.

Matchstick Plantation

We inherited a plantation of Poplar trees at one side of the drive. Originally planted as a crop for matchsticks about 45 years ago, they are now fully mature and could be harvested. As they die back we cut them and plant replacements.

2016 Plantation

One of our first priorities was to invest in more woodland. We selected an area at the farthest point from the house towards the barrage. This meant that the mature trees would not impact on any work we later decided to do at the rear of the house. We sought advice from a friend and tree expert about suitable varieties of trees and chose a selection that will grow to create a canopy, but each be able to achieve their full size. We have Red Oak a variety of Maples, Ash, Robinia, Crab Apple, Flowering Plum and many others. Most flower and the wide variety of leaf colour and shape give interest all year. The trees were mostly over 2m in hight when planted in March 2016 and some are well over 5m now.

2020+ Plantation

We have continued to plant trees each year, replacing old fruit trees, adding trees to the front garden and to the barrage walk. In 2020 we started a new plantation area that we are still expanding. We needed to move some of the trees that had self seeded, so we replanted them along the side of our meadow. This area now has a number of willow and alder that were growing in our back stream and a couple of maples that needed a new home. We will increase the size of this over the next year or so before finding a new area that needs a plantation.

Orchards

Immediately behind the main house is an old orchard. The remaining trees are now mostly past their best and are slowly being replaced. The apples, plums figs and quince have been used since our arrival for producing a wide variety of preserves. Where we have had to replaced trees we added some new types and hope that soon we will be getting some dark cherries and nectarines.

This old orchard is also home to our chickens and bees. We are new to bee keeping and it’s a steep learning curve. We have have the help of a local organic honey producer who is still aiding us in our endeavour to be slightly more self sufficient. The hives are at the far end of the orchard and tucked in between the hedge and the stream, apparently perfect for them. The honey had been magnificent. I use it in place of sugar in most of my baking and also add it to our breakfast tables.

In Summer 2017 we had a visit from a local association who’s objective is to reintroduce hedging and traditional orchards, Arbres et Paysages d’Autan’. With their aid, in December 2017 we planted a double row of hedging plants to protect our new orchard behind the barn, from the prevailing wind and twelve small fruit trees. We now have more apples, plums and pears, which we hope will soon be producing fruit.