Gardening Through Change: Lessons from Gardens Across France

As gardeners, we’re used to the rhythms of nature — the first buds, the lazy hum of summer bees, the rustle of autumn leaves. But across France, those rhythms are shifting. Hotter summers, sudden storms, and long, uncertain dry spells are challenging even the most experienced hands with the trowel.

So, we turned to the people who know these gardens best — our very own Open Gardens members — to ask how they’re adapting. From the cool north to the sun-baked south, your answers painted a wonderfully varied picture of resilience, experimentation, and gentle reinvention.

From North to South— A Patchwork of Experience

In Central France, Nell from one of our Partner Gardens, (the Arbortum de la Sedelle) has been keeping a close eye on her trees. She’s noticed that oaks (Quercus robur) are suffering on shallow soils, while beeches (Fagus sylvatica) dislike the dry, low-humidity summers. Yet not all is lost — her maples are proving remarkably adaptable. She also reminds us that “good mulching is definitely a bonus to help young trees establish themselves and protect older ones.” It’s a quiet reminder that small, steady habits often make the biggest difference.

Christine from the Creuse, offers a designer’s eye. “Think about your lawn — do you need it?” she suggests. “Why not go Mediterranean, with gravel, rocks and repetition?” Her advice is practical and freeing: reduce the number of plant types, repeat what works, and mix in vegetables — “then you can water both!” She also recommends opening gardens later in the season, when the heat eases and the autumn light softens everything into gold.

Further west, Pat, now back in the UK but reflecting on her years in France, remembers losing delicate perennials such as astrantia, astilbe and alchemilla mollis to drought. “It will be relevant here too,” she adds — proof that these lessons cross borders as easily as garden seeds on the wind.

Down in the Dordogne, Sue Cleaver tends to a watermill garden that sits quite literally in the River Dronne. You might imagine it stays lush all year round — yet even there, she found the summer surprisingly dry. “Our kiwi bushes burnt, our acers dropped their leaves, but our yuccas thrived,” she says with a smile. She and her husband rely on the river’s natural silt to nourish the soil instead of mulching, allowing the floodwaters to do their work each winter.

Sue has also shared some beautiful photos of her garden — including one striking image of a wooden bench half-submerged in floodwater. It perfectly captures the contrasts of a changing climate: tranquillity and turbulence side by side, nature reminding us who’s in charge.

In Provence, Nicky faces the opposite challenge. Her garden lies on former marshland with a river running alongside it — the water table sits barely a metre below the surface. Despite searing summer heat, most plants coped without watering, though torrential rains later flooded the ground. Even a brief “mini-tornado” swept through, felling a tall poplar. “So not really much of an issue with climate change — for the moment,” she notes wryly.

Jackie and Len share their clear winners and losers: verbena bonariensis, gaura, rosa rugosa, agapanthus and lavender all thrived, while roses, echinacea and buddleja struggled. Their planting tip is simple — September to October is the sweet spot, when the soil is still warm but the air has cooled.

Sarah and David in the southwest are rethinking their whole approach. “Watering was exhausting — and wasteful,” they admit. Their dahlias disappointed despite daily care, and even hibiscus dropped flowers in protest. Now they’re replacing thirsty plants with Mediterranean species, mulching deeply — up to 15 centimetres, and moving their vegetable patch closer to water. They even start annuals from seed in autumn for earlier, stronger growth the following year.

But as our own President, Susan Lambert gently reminds us from her own garden in a hot dry valley, but with minus 10 degrees centigrade in the winter, that sometimes patience pays off. “Where Sarah and David had issues with their dahlias, I did too — mine only grew to half their normal height. But as soon as the rain came back, they sprang up as usual, and I’ve had a wonderful show that’s still going strong now.” Her experience is a timely reminder not to give up too soon — some plants may simply be waiting for the right moment to recover!

Liz adds a thoughtful perspective from her own garden. She was surprised to lose several lavenders — “Anna” and “Elisabeth” — while the variety ‘Richard Grey’ flourished. She only watered a few particularly vulnerable plants: hydrangea Annabelle and a species camellia, which she cut back and has seen recover well. A section of her yew hedge has browned, possibly from sunburn rather than drought. Her approach remains steady — mulching, pot-starting bulbs, and trusting in plant resilience.

And finally, Paul, who gardens in a large, dry-area plot, sums it up in one word: unpredictability. “We now have to expect odd events — forty degrees in June one day, hailstones the next,” he says. Yet his garden, curiously, “looks better than it has all year, with some shrubs flowering twice.”

From years of observation, Paul has refined a few key principles:

• Plant in September and October, not spring — “nearly everything planted in spring failed to get going.”
• Keep watering during the first year, especially trees and shrubs.
• Simplify — reduce your plant palette to hardy ‘survivor plants’.
• Respect micro-climates — move or re-site plants as the sun’s path and intensity shift year by year.
• Water in the evenings to help soil retain moisture.

His go-to “survivor” list reads like a roll-call of Mediterranean resilience: perovskia, grevillea, cotoneaster, pittosporum, rosemary, eleagnus, yucca, phormium, salvias, conifers, lavender, santolina, helicrysum, achillea, fennel, saponaria, gaura, echinops, solidago, iris, canna, nepeta, stachys, verbena bonariensis and ornamental grasses.

“These shrubs and perennials are just less hassle,” he explains, “and once established, they need no attention at all through the growing season.”

Shared Roots, Shared Wisdom

Across all these gardens — wet, dry, shaded, and sunny — one message stands out: adaptation doesn’t mean starting again. It means watching closely, learning from failure, and giving the garden a chance to evolve.

Whether it’s letting lawns go, swapping dahlias for drought-lovers, or simply shifting the timing of a garden opening, every small change helps our French gardens thrive in a changing climate. And as these stories show, we gardeners are nothing if not adaptable.

Quick Guide: What Our Gardeners Recommend

Plants that thrive:

Verbena bonariensis, gaura, yucca, sedum, cyclamen, rosa rugosa, agapanthus, cannas, hollyhocks, marigolds, lavender (‘Richard Grey’), rosemary, perovskia, santolina, nepeta, achillea, stachys, echinops, phormium, eleagnus, grasses.

Plants that struggled:

Dahlias, hydrangeas, astilbe, echinacea, buddleja, roses, astrantia, alchemilla mollis, certain lavenders (‘Anna’ and ‘Elisabeth’).

Top tips:

• Rethink lawns – replace with gravel, drifts of grasses, or mixed meadow.
• Water deeply but less often; move thirsty plants nearer a source.
• Mulch generously (up to 15 cm).
• Plant in September–October, not spring.
• Keep watering young trees and shrubs through their first year.
• Simplify: focus on ‘survivor plants’ suited to your micro-climate.
• Plant more bulbs now to enjoy earlier displays therefore potentially considering opening a little sooner next year.
• Embrace what nature gives – silt, shade, or even a flood or two.

A huge thank you to everyone who shared their experiences — and to Sue Cleaver for her wonderful photos capturing both the beauty and the challenges of gardening beside the River Dronne. Together, you’ve shown how, even as the seasons change, our gardens – and gardeners – continue to grow, adapt and inspire.