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We bought our (French) Olive tree in the UK. It spent a few seasons in a pot in our Bedfordshire vegetable / fruit garden with spells in an unheated greenhouse during the worst weather. When we moved to France last September we re-imported it and over that first hard winter in central France (36210) it suffered somewhat. Late in the spring it came back into growth and I have now planted it in the ground in a sunny spot surrounded by Med-style planting. It will be saver in the ground with the soil to protect the roots.

Hi, I am sure your chemist will have Magnesium sulphate, even if the garden centre doesn't: Sulfate de magnesium is what you ask for.

Hi there, in our Saterday market there is still plenty of potted and peat-block raised bedding plants available. They will carry on until the frost. Herbacious plants could also be worth a go, especially as my Gamme Vert were offering 70% off with quality still high; we planted a few Peaonies at less than 3 for the price of one! I haven't seen many about, but in the UK I would consider Hebes like Great Orme which flower their hearts out all summer and autumn. When we go to the UK in a couple of weeks time we plan to bring back a lorry load of plants (literally!) for our garden and those of a couple of clients. I shall be concentrating on summer and autumn flowering plants, having bought loads of winter/spring flowering varieties on my last trip.

Hi, we are also in the Indre. It has been so wet recently that Mildew is to be expected and I am sure that is what your trees have got. It may weaken them a little but the effects are not serious in otherwise health trees. To my mind this is nothing to worry about. Colin

Hi, the groundcovering plants sound like Mesembryanthumum....the flowers open in the sun and close when the sun is not shining aand at the end of the day. The climber sounds like Bouganvilla, a conservatory / greenhouse plant in the UK, but you dont say where in France you are: they are OK on the Med coast, for instance. leave them for a while longer to see if they grow from ground level; my Lergestrimia, planted this autumn, looked as if it were dead but if you put your nose to the ground you can just about see new growth! Colin

Hi ya, I live just down the road in Chabris. We are having some folks around for drinkies tomorrow and I know one of them has a contact. Also, there's a sort of agricultural repair place here and loads of companies in Romorantin (about 25km from you) Colin

I'm glad someone suggested Snowdrops "in the green": ask around and see if neighbours have some for you. Of course, you could try summer / autumn / winter bulbs. Colchicums should be available before too long, for instance Colin

Camellias are plants of woodlands, as someone has already said. This means they resent rapid temperature change, like high humidity and acid soil with plenty of organic matter. You dont say which region you are from. Brittany is famous for its Rhododendrons and Camellias but in the sandy soil of central France, we do OK too. At a recent plant fair I was able to buy an unusual species: Camellia japonica rustica, which has huge quanities of flower (typically 8 flower buds for every one carried by C. japonica) and is planted on the north side of our house, where it is just showing colour. Colin

Going to any garden shows in France this year? Why not tell us all about it? I'm just back from the plant fair at the Chateau de Beauregard, a great Rotary event near Blois. Here's a poster about the next one I have planned (unless I find out about something else before then): Chateau de la Ferte St Auban http://www.gardendesignfrance.com/assets/chateau%20de%20la%20ferte-tracts%202009.pdf Colin the Gardener  

Hi Sueyh, The short answer is yes; the long answer involves quizzing you on what variety of Cypress you are considering but.....yes. Colin

Hi, The French treat you as if you are crazy if you ask for turf, our local garden centre looking at us as if we had just arrived from the planet Zog, but it is out there. Google for pelouse en plaques: there are companies growing it to supply the Paris market and for sports turf. My own garden will get a shiny new lawn from turf when the builders stop throwing rubble everywhere! Colin www.garden-design.co.uk

I see what appear to be Bluebells,Tulips, Primrose and Paeony. I am working on recovering a garden from 25 years of neglect: currently digging and weeding a 15m boundary border and planting at the same time. I've just got to the house end from the centre of the garden with a 1.5m wide bed, but I've started again at the other end to make it much wider. Its in the shade of two huge Sequoias and I have a couple of Rhododendrons, 3 evergreen Azaleas, a Daphne mezerium, two Japanese Maples, an Osmanthus, Magnolia stelata, Hamaemellis, an American Holly, a dwarf Philadelphus and a few other bits and pieces to go in that area. Next week we'll move on to the sunny bit so a few cooler days would be appreciated! Colin

Hi and thanks for all that. I'm in two minds: leave it and pray or pot it up and hide it out of the cold over winter. On balance I think the latter if you have somewhere appropriate. How we miss our conservatory and greenhouse! We do have an old Victorian metal conservatory on the north side of our house, with a tree fern as the only living occupant at the moment. Colin

Hi Medoc, Marmande is your local variety but many others will do well in your area, both English and French soursed. Seed breeding is an international business and many toms that we grow in the UK will have been bred in Holland, France or whereever. This chateau near us http://www.labourdaisiere.com/en/the-conservatory-of-tomato  grow 650 different varieties while these people further south do more than three hundred http://www.semences-bio-languedoc.com/domaine.htm I think you can get plants / seed from these contacts but if not your local garden centre will help you. Me, I like Cherry Toms and will be putting my order in to Thom[son and Morgan as soon as I get a spare moment. Colin

Hi, I have grown this as a house plant in the UK and seen it used in municiple summer bedding schemes in France, but never as a perminantly planted shrub / tree. No doubt others will correct me if they have more experience of Grevillea robusta, but in all but the most protected conditions I'd say you were pushing your luck....even in the Minervoir Good luck, Colin

Who are these people you use for soil testing? Do they have a web site? My own contact (I used to use them all the time) seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth so the last couple of times I used the RHS Colin

I knew I would get in trouble for suggesting that Roundup is harmless: ah well, you must do as you feel best. There is another possible explaination for the death of your trees, other than pollution from dumped chemicals. There are a number of common  diseases (Phytopthera is the beastie of the moment) which kill off roots and move through the soil in the ground water. There is, I'm afraid, no cure for these diseases and they are causing serious problems in the UK, France and everywhere else. I've just come back from a business trip to the UK with a car full of plants and paint. Lots of work to do here! Colin

Hi David, If your soil has a bit of clay in it your other problem will be due to compaction, with air spaces in the soil (that the plants need) destroyed. Cultivation of the soil (once it is dry) will correct this howver. Roundup is a very effective weedkiller provided things are growing strongly. It needs to be mixed with water and sprayed on. It breaks down rapidly in the soil to become harmless but if you touch plants you value with the spray expect them to be killed as well; do it carefully and in still conditions. Seeds are available from your local, friendly garden centre in a range of varieties to suit varying conditions. Elsewhere in these Forums others have suggested going to the agricultural stores for grass seed. If you are happy with a lawn that looks like a field this offers a very cheap solution. The task order is: weedkiller, rotavator, rake and roll, sow the seeds and lightly rake in. Water if you can and keep the birds away! Turf is hard to get and expensive but it does exist: try Google.Fr. An alternative option is to turf near the house/patio and the edges of all the beds and seed the rest. Have fun, Colin

Everyone seems to have it in for Eucalyptus but in Cornwall we used rows of them to drain marshy ground so that we could grow other crops in the field.....the results were very successful. We also grew it as cut foliage - we had about an acre of them - but the plants in the marshy ground were not good for this in our case. Eucalyptus grow once cut from buds hidden under the bark....the more you cut the more these buds grow so it is not hard to have very vigorous but quite modest sized trees. Colin

Hi Maude, There are many shrubs and trees that will grow well in damp soil and others have mentioned a few. If you use trees, try to put them on the north side, so you dont end up with a damp, shady area which will become mossy. In addition to the Cornus and Willow options, consider Eucalyptus, which removes huge amounts of water from the soil and has the advantage that it can be pruned back if it gets too tall. As others have also noted there is a large range of 'marginal' plants that will give you plenty of flowers in your damp area.

Jardins de France is the monthly magazine of the SNHF - France's RHS. In the December issue there was a great article on Chestnuts (Sweet Chestnut - Castanea, not Horse Chestnut - Aesculus). In the seven-page article they talked about the botany, cultivation, history, varieties, nut proteries and more: diseases. Two killer deseases noted are:  L'encre (Phytophtora cinnamoni) which effects the roots causing the leaves to drop. Characteristic lesions bled an inky substance. The are no chemical controls but the advice is to avoid contamination by removing dead wood and not planting in damp soils. There are also new resistant varieties and rootstocks. Chancre de l'ecorse (Endothia parasitica) which enters the plant through natural damage or poor pruning. The fungus lives in the bark and causes leaves above the infection to dry out. Again, no chemical control exists. Between them these diseases have caused huge losses of trees and if your plants have it an offer of cutting and removing them for free sounds very good value. Phytophtora cinnamoni in particular causes serious diseases in a very wide range of plants so be careful what you plant in that part of the garden in future. Colin the Gardener This post has been edited by a moderator,  in line with the forum code of conduct.  Please do not post your personal contact details or advertise your business on the forum.  Users are allowed one link to their website in their signature line.

Hi, We have no problem buying bare root trees in central France. Here is a link that may help you find one in your area: http://www.pepinieres.com/index.htm Colin the Gardener

Hi Pat and Don, You don't say if you have the white one, or one of those newer coloured varieties; also is it in the ground or in a pot. The common white form rejoices in the name Zantedeschia aethiopica Crowborough (yes, I did have to look up the spelling!) and is best grown with its feet in the water. We had a lovely clump in a stream in our Cornish garden and the water itself protected it over winter. This comes from South Africa and is hardier than the coloured forms of Z.albomaculata which tend to have white spots on their leaves. They are often sold in flower in garden centres as a patio plant. Minimum winter temperatures for these is said to be 10C, and if (like me) you dont always give them greenhouse protection it may not flower a second year. If you want to protect crowns outside over winter, straw would be a good material.   Colin the Gardener   36210 France

Everyone is right: there was a late frost which did dramatically reduce Plum  yeilds and Plums do often overcrop one year and undercrop the other. Silver Leaf is one of the most obvious diseases to identify: the leaves are clearly "silver" in the effected branches. It is caused by the epidermis ( I think this is right, my biology lesson was taken 30 years ago) of the leaf being lifted so that the light is reflect differantly: it looks lighter. Colin

Hi, Silver leaf is a serious disease, often caused, or rather, allowed in, by poor pruning technique or other damage to a branch. If itdoes not occur in the whole tree you can try cutting out the infected parts to 20cm below the last sign of staining in the wood. These branches should be burnt, cuts sealed with Arborex and tools sterilised. There is no problem replanting Plums in the same area, but be careful to prune as little as possible in the summer. You could also consider planting resistant varieties such as Evesham's very own "Pershore" and the popular "Marjorie's Seedling" Colin