The last few days have been busy at the garden! We had 219 people visit in the afternoon on Wednesday, 205 Thursday, but only 37 today because of terrible weather. Wednesday was the first time all season that they’ve crossed the 200 line. Thursday was the Feast of the Assumption, and most of France is Catholic so it’s a work holiday (we got to take the morning off). Since it’s in August, anyone who isn’t already on vacation usually takes Friday off for a long weekend, so they were expecting higher visitation at the garden.

Wednesday morning, I attacked the Gunnera lining the path to the garden exit. They’re awesome and it’s quite the experience to walk through them, but too many were covering the walk making it a little dangerous, so I cleared it out a bit. Florian and one of the gardeners, Andre, were widening a path to the Lower Palm Forest in the Eryngiums, and I got to bag up all the leaves they were removing. Between the Eryngium and the Gunnera, the discarded leaves barely fit into two tractor loads!

There is a wedding tomorrow at the garden, but the forecast looks like it’s going to rain. They were planning on holding events in the great lawn, but they’ll need to move them into the convenient tent that’s set up near the entrance. Florian and I got to start sprucing it up a little bit this morning. No one has used it since we’ve been here, so it needed a little love. It’s a nice event space, they should try to use it more!

Next Friday is my last day at Vauville. I can hardly believe it! This summer in France has been weird for me time-wise, feeling at the same time like it’s dragged on forever and gone by faster than I could imagine. It seems like my family came to visit just last weekend, not a month ago! I’m so grateful to the French Heritage Society and Magnolia Plantations for sponsoring and organizing my time here, and leaving me the flexibility at the end to spend some time travelling around the rest of France for a bit when I’m done! It really has been a great experience, and a fabulous way to finish off my formal horticultural education.