Visiting Garden Centres and Plant Nurseries in Poitou-Charentes - Deux-Sèvres, Vienne, the Charente and Charente-Maritime
Whether you’re on holiday or just on a day out, visiting gardens centres and plant nurseries is always a voyage of discovery. You never quite know what you might find. That is just as true in France as it is anywhere else, especially as garden centres are becoming more popular here.
The plants that you find in plant nurseries and garden centres in Poitou-Charentes - the Charente, Charente-Maritime, Vienne and Deux-Sèvres - may vary enormously from one place to another. Often, though not always, plant nurseries tend to specialise in a few or even just one type of plant – for example poplars or Acers, though they may stock other plants as well.
Plant nurseries may also situated be off the beaten track and not always so used to dealing with the general public. But it is here that you will often find the best plants, perhaps a rare specimen or at least some very well-kept and developed trees, shrubs or herbaceous perennials produced by an expert plantsman. Plant nurseries often grow their own plants from seed, division or cuttings.
In Poitou-Charentes and elsewhere garden centres tend to be more generalist, stocking a little bit of everything. Usually but not always they buy their plants in from wholesalers. You will also find lots of other items for sales beside plants – decorations, containers, tools and often pet items - making gardens centres ideal places to buy presents. You will often find French people wil visit a garden centre to buy presents for friends whom they are visiting for lunch or dinner. A houseplant is a popular choice.
Garden centres in Poitou-Charentes are growing in popularity as they are in other parts of the country. There was a time when garden centres here could be accused of being restricted in choice and very conservative in their stocks. That though, is changing, and both plant nurseries and garden centres are stocking a wider range of plants these days.
And if you can’t find what you want it is always worth asking – some garden centres and plant nurseries are very willing to order stock in for you. One advantage of the Latin naming system for plants is that even if you don’t know the French word for a shrub, flower or tree you can usually make yourself understood by giving the plant’s scientific name!
Useful vocabulary:
pépinière - plant nursery
jardinerie - garden nursery
jardinier paysagiste - landscape gardener
Search for garden centres and plant nurseries in Deux-Sèvres, Charente, Charente-Maritime and Vienne in Poitou-Charentes
Words: Michael STREETER
Photos: Fotolia