The garden and the gardens of Salagon

About thePriorthe #Salagon and its gardens and some special plants such as the wild gladiolus, the paper tree and the oleanders, which grow in the garden of Salagon or in the surrounding area.

From Bellegarde to Salagon

We will visit the Musée Conservatoire Ethnobotanique de Haute Provence. They can come up with high-floated names, the French. Sometimes it's not much, but this time it's worth it. A beautiful and well restored building, a special exhibition, several interesting gardens and a small but fine bookstore.We had to drive 120 km, but the ride to it was as interesting as the Conservatoire itself. We stay in a small village in the French Drôme, Bellegarde-en-Diois, from where we drive to Establet towards Valdrome, on the col de Rossas we look for the wild Peony and find it. Last year, they were standing on the side of the road in the rubble, and that's why we all thought, except for Marleen, that they were discarded, wild specimens. This year we discover that original wild Peonies had to grow in that neighborhood and so we took a look, with this pleasant discovery as a result.

Col de Carabes

But you must continue, first to Valdrôme and then towards Serres via the endlessly quiet col de Carabès. Just before the turtleneck, stopping again at a tiny lake with an abundance of plants, especially the beautiful sturdy leaves of the yellow gentians in contrast to the stiff stems of the planter straw and the frivolous leaf of the big pimpernel make me kick the brake.
Before we arrive in Serres we stop two more times, first in a village to admire a beautiful group of flowering torch plants and shortly afterwards to see our first wild gladiolus in the canal side along a grain field.

Before we reach the Prior de Salagon we stopped two more times, once to harvest seed from a large salsifis, the yellow morning star but with bigger flowers than the Belgian one and a second time again for the wild gladiolus, which now grew up and in the fields together with poppy, and in the fields. crested hyacinth and esparcetteklaver.

The #tuinen from Salagon

Finally, the gardens of Salagon with the Jardin des Simples and the Jardin médieval. Many plants of course and we had seen so many along the way. For us were a strange sage (Salvia fructicosa), a dye plant with indigo color Polygonum tinctoria, a specimen of the Siberian ginseng (Eleutherococcus) and the Papiertree, Murier a papier (Broussonetia papyrifera (L.) Guy.) Interesting. In the Medieval Garden (Jardin médieval) we will again enjoy seeing the Smilax, the Sarsa of the Smurfs and the most magical of the Magics, the Mandragora or Alruin. This' male 'even possessed 2 thick, green testicles. Is that why he ever was used as an aphrodisiac?

The Prior of Salagon is located in the village of Mane. The Benedictine church was built in the 12th century on the Roman armies of Via Domitia, in a place inhabited as early as the first century AD. The archaeological excavations under the church prove that. Through a glass view you can admire medieval coffins and bones. Under the leadership of Pierre Coste, several botanical gardens have been laid out. The project began in the 1980s, when the French state bought the domain and restored the buildings. First, a medieval garden was built with European plants from that time. The time for the voyages of discovery.

The most recent and now largest part, is the garden with plants from all continents, from North America to Asia, from the tobacco and coca plant to the Siberian ginseng. All plants that were not known in France before the voyages of discovery, and are now used in food, as a medicinal herb or for other purposes in Europe. Striking but not surprising in a French garden are the many oleanders. Nerium oleander L. has been in culture in southern Europe since Greco-Roman antiquity. But it is suspected that the oleander in the Mediterranean part of Europe was already imported under Phoenician civilization (2900-1200 BC). All plants with a history that we can admire here in the Prior de Salagon. A lot of history about the relationship between man and plant and thus a real garden for herbalists and herbalists.