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Recently your Branch Head was honoured to lead a small party of keen gardeners and garden-lovers to Montpellier in the south of France, almost but not quite on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. A highlight of the tour was a visit to the Jardin Antique Méditerranéen at Balaruc-le-Bains on the bay Etang de Thau. The garden is intended to replicate the mood and reality of a colonial Roman garden of some 2000 years ago.
Mask among the roses in Jardin Antique Méditerranéen
Imagined, created, and curated by Laurent Fabre, the garden is remarkable for its serene atmosphere and spirituality. Each and every part, all connected and continuous, is both beautiful and a powerful evocation of an ancient Roman garden with its links to the landscape of man and the landscape of the gods.
A visit to the garden begins in a lecture room with a large mural as a backdrop. The mural is derived from those found in Pompeii and is representational of a Roman garden with fruit trees, a fountain, flowers, herbs, birds and a low fence. Each object depicted has a rich text behind it; for instance the apple tree references the goddess Pomona while the fence references philosophical concepts behind the human condition and safety, enclosure, apart-ness and separation. The water of the fountain harks back to the nymphs and spirits of the countryside that Romans ‘saw’ everywhere.
The amphitheatre, Jardin Antique Méditerranéen
Outside, a small amphitheatre sets the scene of an academic sacred grove where learning and discussion can take place. This conceptualises the Roman ideas of being a civilised man pursuing his ‘otium’, or relaxation, in the enjoyment of (male) company and philosophical discussion. From there the garden develops as a stroll garden leading visitors through productive gardens with herbs – medicinal and aromatic, and vegetables, then through a vineyard, olive plantation and into a grove of trees at the conclusion of which is a garden of mortality and death represented by a grave in a sacred precinct planted with rosemary and hemlock – the symbolism of which remains potent to this day. To emphasise the concept a bleached skull completes the picture.
Skull in the Garden of Mortality, Jardin Antique Méditerranéen
From then on the garden takes on a more recognisable Roman aspect with a series of stone colonnades swathed in shady vines raised on a terrace that gives views back over the groves, vineyards and productive gardens. From here a garden visitor can see and hear a nymphaeum, a series of small spouts dribbling water into a shallow trough set at ground level and planted with aquatic plants.
The Nymphaeum at the base of the reservoir, Jardin Antique Méditerranéen
The reservoir that captures the spring water, Jardin Antique Méditerranéen
Above it is a large, raised, rectangular reservoir of water fed from a spring – a real spring that has been known and regarded as sacred since Roman times at least. The spring-head is marked by a small shrine featuring statues of the gods of family life (Lares).
The spring head Jardin Antique Méditerranéen
Having established the many connections between the gods in their heaven and man on his earth, the garden then moves into a more secular mode with a pair of borders featuring a very Roman mix of flowers, herbs and vegetables, then a topiary garden and finally a representation of a wilderness.
Jardin Antique Méditerranéen -garden borders with flowers, medicinal herbs, vegetables, culinary herbs, dye herbs and small fruit trees
At every step Laurent explains the linkages which were once so obvious to ancient Romans and Greeks, and now so sadly lacking from our own insight into the meaning of gardens. We are the poorer for not having that rich background tapestry of myth, lore, religion and tradition that imbued every aspect of daily life in ancient times.
Part of the vegetable garden behind bamboo lattice fence Jardin Antique Méditerranéen
While it is almost impossible to ‘read’ modern gardens in the manner the ancients did we can at least recognise the strong links between the Romans, the Mediterranean climate they experienced in much of the Roman empire, and the influence it exerted on their lifestyle. The lessons are there for us to read and understand: climate compatible gardening, the use of a (relatively) simple, restrained plant palette, water-wise and seasonal planting, the contrast between formal and informal elements within garden spaces, the combination of productive and decorative components, and the use of gardens as living spaces, even those associated with death, as well as those associated with eating, talking, listening, learning and loving.
They knew a thing or two those ancient Romans didn’t they?
