>Hello Manon, can you introduce yourself to the users of MonJardin-MaTerrasse.com :
Now an adopted Norman, I live in a village near Dieppe, after having lived in the Pacific for 18 years, then in the Paris region, Montpellier, Nantes, Rennes… My childhood in the islands gave birth to my vocation for color and nature.
A landscape engineer and ecologist, I studied agricultural engineering at Agro Montpellier, with a specialization in environmental preservation and management, and then at the Ecole Nationale des Ingénieurs du Paysage in project techniques (INH-ENIHP) in Angers. After 6 years as a project manager in landscape and environmental consultancies in Nantes and Paris, I decided to set up my own garden and landscape consultancy, Terres Paysagées, in early 2012.
>You had the honor of taking part in the 2011 Chaumont sur Loire Garden Festival. Can you tell us what this unique experience brought you, something every landscape designer dreams of doing?
First of all, the project had to be designed by a team of people, each with their own specific skills – Simon, an architect, Sandra, a textile designer – and technical constraints that had to be integrated into the overall design of the same garden, and the need to work together to tight deadlines;
Logistical support, human and technical resources on site and in the nursery are truly incredible, making every idea, even the craziest, feasible;
The benefits of working with nurserymen, thanks to whom I’ve discovered unsuspected plants;
A very short construction phase, to be organized and optimized as much as possible, with great encounters with the other teams and gardeners; we live cut off from the world and at the same time we meet people who come from everywhere, it’s magical;
The joy of creating our garden from A to Z, watching it grow and evolve over 4 seasons;
The pleasure of hearing visitors’ comments on the plot;
The sadness of having to part with it, that it is so ephemeral…
Chaumont was an exciting challenge that gave me the feeling that anything is possible when it comes to gardens, no matter how small, and that there are no limits to creativity and technical solutions.
>Your current activity and specialty (garden style, terrace…) and the landscaping concepts that are important to you:
Today, I design and create gardens, mainly for private individuals but also for nurseries and companies, near Dieppe and all over France (Paris region, Picardy, Nantes region, PACA region…).
The variety of landscapes and environments I’ve encountered in my personal and professional life have fueled my desire for plant diversity in a garden. This diversity is important to me, because with a varied plant palette, it’s easier to touch the 5 senses that allow us to apprehend the garden: color, foliage (textures), fragrances, materials, herbs and fruits… With this variety, it’s also a garden that’s more alive from a floristic and faunistic point of view, but also a garden that changes more with the rhythm of the seasons.
My specialty (if I have one) would then be a mixed garden style, at the crossroads of natural, traditional, convivial and English gardens, between structural rigor and colorful abundance. I also love landscaping terraces, creating potted gardens…
>You’ve agreed to take part in the project and to be the reference landscape engineer for Mon jardin ma terrasse.com. Can you explain why? what attracted you to this approach to 21st-century landscaping?
I thought this was a great idea, as garden owners are often reluctant to plant because they don’t know what a particular shrub or hedge will look like in their garden, in terms of volume and/or harmony. A before and after glimpse of the garden at different seasons, at planting or at maturity, in an objective way, is a great decision-making tool! The idea of a budget is immediate, and it’s also a determining factor in the project.
For me, it’s an opportunity to work on a wide variety of gardens, to be able to use infinite and different plant palettes according to local conditions and individual expectations.
Example of Manon’s work with My Garden Designer before/after:
Tomorrow we’ll look at Manon’s advice on creating and designing gardens and terraces.