The tour with Louisa was the best garden tour we have ever taken and staying at La Mirande is a remarkable experience.
louisa jones
GARDENS IN PROVENCE
MEDITERRANEAN LANDSCAPE ART
MEDITERRANEAN LANDSCAPE ART
Garden Weeks in Provence
TOUR DATES FOR 2012: Sunday April 15nd – Saturday 21th AND Sunday October 7th – Saturday October 12th
Special guest in April: Stephen Anderton, garden correspondent for the London Times
 La Carmejane patio (Nichols) |
 Marc Nucera at work (Nichols) |
 Garrett Finney: La Louve (Nichols) |
 Dominique Lafourcade: Loft Garden (Nichols) |
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Garden Week in Provence is held twice yearly, always in the third week in April and the second week of October. I organize this in partnership with the Mirande hotel in Avignon (www.la-mirande.fr) and the Susan Worner agency (www.susanwornertours.com). Each trip offers six nights at this elegant and comfortable, family-run hotel, and five full days of garden visits, which I set up and accompany. Many of the gardens are open only to me, based on a network of personal contacts and friendships. The emphasis is on contemporary design, sometimes by owners, sometimes by internationally renowned professionals. In most cases we are received by the owners, and there are often house as well as garden visits. We also meet some of the designers and artists.
The schedule is renewed yearly as gardens mature and decline and designers show me their new work. I make up each year’s itineraries in November, never exactly the same. Only the great “classics” are repeated each time. Several participants in Garden Week have returned with pleasure a second time.
Gardens are the main emphasis but gardens in Provence always involve food and general lifestyle enjoyment. Shopping is not on the itinerary but there is time to shop at the end of the day, and one afternoon during the week. It is always possible to stay on or come early.
PRICES FOR 2012: €3960 per person for sharing a large double or twin room. €4790 for single occupancy of a double room.
Maximum 16 participants. Local transportation, three lunches and three dinners provided, including a cooking lesson with the Mirande’s chef. For further information on content, contact Louisa Jones at ljones@orange.fr. For prices, booking, travel arrangements and other practical information, contact Susan Worner info@susanwornertours.com www.susanwornertours.com Tel: +44 1904 651651
Testimonials
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Mary Tonetti Dorra, 2007
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Thank you for one of the most memorable weeks of my life! Joan Simms, 2008, returned in October 2011
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This was the most wonderful tour-- all I'd hoped and then more. I enjoyed every aspect - the gardens of course, my fellow travelers, the hotel, the meals (both the formal and informal) the weather (yes, you should take a bow for that!) and the overall organization. I thank you also for your wonderful relaxed attitude, your incredible knowledge and great willingness to share it with such patience and grace. Kay Annoni, April 2011
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We returned home energized and inspired. I think this was the best trip of my life! Ewa Zembrozsi, 2008
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Garden Week in Provence—April 15th - 21st, 2012
 Michel Semini: Mas Theo (Nichols) |
 Michel Semini: Mas Theo (Jones) |
 Nicole de Vésian : La Louve (Jones) |
 Tim Rees: Petit Fontanille (Jones) |
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APRIL:
...spring had come to meet me, a spring such as one imagines in fairy tales, the exuberant, ephemeral, irresistible spring of Provence, rich and fresh, springing up in sudden bursts of greenery, in plants already tall which sway and ripple in the wind, in mauve Judas trees and paulownias the colour of grey periwinkles, in laburnums, wisterias and roses...a scent of honey and pine, of varnished buds and lilac. The cherry trees cast a violet shadow on the reddish earth...
...spring had come to meet me, a spring such as one imagines in fairy tales, the exuberant, ephemeral, irresistible spring of Provence, rich and fresh, springing up in sudden bursts of greenery, in plants already tall which sway and ripple in the wind, in mauve Judas trees and paulownias the colour of grey periwinkles, in laburnums, wisterias and roses...a scent of honey and pine, of varnished buds and lilac. The cherry trees cast a violet shadow on the reddish earth...
Sunday April 15th at 7 pm: Introduction to landscapes and gardens in Provence by Louisa Jones, aperitif and welcome dinner at La Mirande.
Monday April 16th in the northeastern Alpilles: A morning admiring the work of leading tree sculptor Marc Nucera, in his company (two gardens). Café lunch (not included), then a rarely visited but beautifully maintained work by Alain David Idoux and Marc Nucera. Late afternoon visit to Les Confines, the masterpiece of designer Dominique Lafourcade, with her new African garden, guided by herself.
Tuesday April 17th in the Luberon: The Clos Pascal, Nicole de Vésian’s creation, a very private terraced garden, half wild, half rustic. The courtyard of an American art foundation and the Carmejane, spectacular cliff hanging garden, where we are invited to lunch with the owner-designer. Finally la Louve, Vésian’s own garden, subject of Louisa’s prizewinning book (2011).
Wednesday April 18th in the Mont Ventoux: Visit to a château garden first laid out by Alain David Idoux, with ongoing work by Marc Nucera and a Japanese tea garden by Erik Borja. Picnic lunch and visit in one of the region’s most interesting contemporary sculpture gardens designed by New Zealander Anthony Paul, a leader in the British garden design world today.
Thursday April 19th in the central-west Alpilles: The gardens of fashion and press magnate Pierre Bergé, by Michel Semini: domino courtyards each with its own character. Then Altavès, an authentic Provençal garden adapted to contemporary taste by the owner, leading local estate agent. Back to Avignon for individual lunch. Late afternoon cooking lesson at La Mirande in the vaulted medieval kitchen.
Friday April 20th in the central Alpilles: In the heart of the mountains, the gardens of Avignon’s main auctioneer. Picnic lunch at a hidden farmstead near Les Baux with the artist owners, home gardeners, in a beautiful half wild place. Afternoon visit to the Mas de Benoît, Alain David Idoux’s masterpiece, the best of Provençal landscape art.
Itineraries based on arrangements with private people may change, though these appointments are confirmed. There is a great deal of choice. If anything is removed, something comparable will be substituted.
Garden Week in Provence—October 7th - 12th 2012
 Terraced landscape (Motte) |
 Mas de Benoit (Jones) |
 Nicole de Vésian : La Louve (Nichols) |
 Nicole de Vésian: Saint-Symphorien (Nichols) |
| Click on each image to see it in full. | |||
OCTOBER:
I have done another canvas, "An Autumn Garden", with two cypresses, bottle-green, shaped like bottles, and three little chestnut trees, a little yew with pale-lemon foliage, two bushes blood-red with scarlet purple leaves; some sand, some grass, and some blue sky...The falling of leaves is beginning; you can see the trees turning yellow, and the yellow increasing every day. it is as least as beautiful as the orchards in bloom.
I have done another canvas, "An Autumn Garden", with two cypresses, bottle-green, shaped like bottles, and three little chestnut trees, a little yew with pale-lemon foliage, two bushes blood-red with scarlet purple leaves; some sand, some grass, and some blue sky...The falling of leaves is beginning; you can see the trees turning yellow, and the yellow increasing every day. it is as least as beautiful as the orchards in bloom.
Sunday October 7th at 7pm: Introduction to landscapes and gardens in Provence by Louisa Jones, aperitif and welcome dinner at La Mirande.
Monday October 8 in the North Luberon: A wonderful, still unpublished garden by Michel Semini, with rose arbors, orchards, vineyards and a vast parterre made of ornamental grasses. The courtyard of an American art foundation, then lunch, invited by the owners of the fabulous Carmejane, Provence’s most famous garden today. Finally the iconic Louve, gardens by Nicole de Vésian (see my prizewinning book on this designer’s work).
Tuesday October 9 in the eastern Alpilles and the south Luberon: Dominique Lafourcade’s fabuous gardens, Les Confines, with the new African gardens, probably with her accompanying. Picnic lunch with the owners in the very elegant gardens of the Pavillon de Galons (Roman pool). Finally a wild woodland landscape garden designed by Nicole de Vésian around a medieval priory once belonging to Jane Fonda and Roger Vadim.
Wednesday October 10 in the central Alpilles: The Mas Théo and Mas Vincent: domino courtyards of Pierre Bergé, art collector, and life companion of Yves Saint Laurent (masterpiece of designer Michel Semini). Time at the market and individual lunch in Saint Rémy de Provence. Finally, the family nursery of Pierre and Pia Braun, specializing in Mediterranean plants.
Thursday October 11 in the Gard, west of Avignon: The Gardens of the Noria, important work by Arnaud Maurières and Eric Ossart near Uzès. Return to Avignon for individual lunch and free time before a convivial cooking lesson in the vaulted basement kitchens of the Mirande.
Friday October 12 in the southern and eastern Alpilles: One of the best bastide garden by Dominique Lafourcade, much published; picnic lunch in the midst of the wild hills of Les Baux. Final visit to the minimalist, land art masterpiece, the Mas de Benoit, by Alain David Idoux and tree sculptor Marc Nucera.
Itineraries based on arrangements with private people may change, though these contacts are confirmed. There is a great deal of choice. If anything is removed, something comparable will be substituted.
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