Camellias and the Case for Starting Outside

Why we’re thinking about the castle gardens before bedrooms.

February at the château was…consistent.

Not really in a charming way. In the way a printer error is consistent. Everything takes longer, your boots never fully dry, and the sky feels like it’s been set to ‘dishwater’ for three straight weeks. We’ve had cozy moments, yes. But at a certain point you start taking personal offense at a drizzle and feel absolutely starved for some color.

So for my birthday, we staged a small escape. Saint-Malo. Salt air. A little sun. The ocean doing what it does best: resetting you. —> Read the full trip recap here.

It worked immediately.

We walked for hours. Flew a kite (after digging it out of the “why do we own this?” pile). Ate sushi. Played games at night. Everyone slept like rocks.

And then, while driving through town, we saw something that brought the color back to my cheeks.

Camellias. Everywhere.

Pretty pink camellias draping over an old brick wall.

The orange-pink color against the green was a striking contrast.

Not a few brave blooms. Full, theatrical camellias, as though Saint-Malo never got the February memo.

I kept stopping in front of gardens like some sort of lurking paparazzi. You know the feeling when you catch yourself staring at someone else’s front yard and then you have to pretend you’re checking a message? That was me, repeatedly, whispering to Sean: Look at this one. Look at the colors. How is it doing that in February?

I came home with the most dangerous thing you can bring back to a château.

A new priority.

The garden problem (which is actually a timing problem)

Here’s the inconvenient truth we’re starting to understand.

Renovating a building feels like progress because it’s immediate. You remove something, you replace something, and you can point to a wall and say, we did that.

Gardens don’t work like that.

Gardens ask you to make decisions now for a payoff you won’t see for years. Trees especially. Anything woody and meaningful is basically a long-term investment plan (not ideal for impatient personalities like mine).

That’s why most château content focuses on interiors first. The house delivers before-and-after dopamine. The garden delivers…time.

But those Saint-Malo camellias made something click.

A good garden isn’t just pretty. It’s timed, it’s designed.

Bloom timing. Winter structure. Where your eyes land in February when everything else looks like bare sticks and damp soil. Where the path pulls you. Where you pause. Where the château looks best from. Where the river becomes a feature instead of a complication. Where the wind is blocked, where the sun hits, where the soil drains, where it doesn’t.

It’s a lot of planning. And yes, a little bit of mystery.

And now that we’re on our own land, with our own blank slate, I’m realizing the garden is not a side quest.

It’s the slowest, most consequential part of this whole project.

The garden we still miss

Before we bought this place, we rented a farmhouse for two and a half years on the grounds of another château. It came with the kind of garden that ruins you for normal expectations.

Our former garden at the rented French farmhouse.

It was walled, which meant it was protected. Not metaphorically, but truly protected from deer, wild boar, and other woodland residents who believe your vegetables are a communal resource.

There were grape vines climbing the stone walls. Roses framing the front door. Ivy in the good, storybook sense (not the we-will-pay-for-this-later sense). Flowering pear trees. Rosemary that bloomed and contributed to our al fresco summer meals.

And there was an ornamental cherry tree that could genuinely reset your standards for spring. We put the kids’ playhouse and swing under it. When it bloomed, the whole garden turned rosy. When the petals fell, the ground looked like someone had scattered tiny pink stars everywhere.

Under the cherry tree - the perfect place for our daughter to set up her tea parties.

When the blooms fell, the whole ground was covered in a carpet of pink.

Sean and I, being fully outperformed by the cherry tree.

I miss that garden in a way that is frankly inconvenient.

Because it was small enough to understand, and finished enough to feel like we were living inside a completed idea.

Here, we have something bigger. More land, more possibilities.

Also more: where do we even begin?

The unfashionable thought: what if we start outside?

We’ve talked so much about the coach house, the rentals, the interior projects, the pool, the forest, the windows.

But since Saint-Malo, I keep returning to one question. What if we put more attention on the gardens first?

Not instead of the boring essentials. We are not postponing safety, heating, or anything that keeps the place functional. We’re not going to become the people with a gorgeous border of tulips and a boiler that only works when it feels like it.

But there are a few fun interior projects we could delay. Bedroom upgrades. Bathroom prettiness. Cosmetic things that can wait.

Because the garden has one unfair advantage over everything else - it takes time you cannot buy back later.

We went to a nursery recently and asked how long it would take for an ornamental cherry tree to feel established.

The answer was, “Maybe five years.”

Five.

Five??

Look, I am not naturally patient. I don’t enjoy waiting. I have a strong internal clock that keeps (scream) whispering, your kids will not be this age forever.

If we want a treehouse that feels magical to them, we should probably build it while they still think treehouses are cool.

If we want them growing up with a garden they can actually run through, pick from, hide in, and remember, we have to start now.

And Sean and I are not spring chickens either. I want us to enjoy the dream while we still have the energy to get excited about it and build it, not only manage it.

So yes. We’re learning to do the boring thing.

Start the slow stuff early.

Ugh.

And yay!

What we know we want

Here’s the current list. It’s ambitious. It will be edited by budget, time, my husband, and reality. But it’s where our minds keep going.

• A kitchen garden, preferably walled.

• Expanding the orchard. We’ve already planted 11 fruit trees alongside the existing apple trees.

• A pond for ducks.

• One or two fountains.

• Brick or stone footpaths.

• A cutting garden for flowers.

• Spring bulbs, scattered in a way that looks intentional but not fussy.

• A greenhouse (maybe two - we’ve also entertained the greenhouse-in-the-forest-for-dinners fantasy, because apparently we’re like this now).

• Open grassy areas for soccer, croquet, and the occasional Downton Abbey tea party.

• Stone walls and gates where they make sense.

• A wildflower meadow.

• Ivy and wisteria on the château walls, if we can do it without making future-us regret everything.

• And the forest, which deserves its own post. Restoring a forest sounds romantic until you realize it involves endless brambles, deadwood, and removing giant piles of branches and brush.

And then there are garden rooms. Because once you start thinking this way, you can’t stop.

Some inspiration for the Moon Garden blooms.

• A moon garden. Whites and silvers. Plants that show off at night.

• A star garden, to honor a piece of this château’s history.

• And on our slope, we have been slightly obsessed with the idea of a garden theatre. If you’ve seen Arne Maynard’s, you know. Carved rows in a hillside, a ‘stage’ below. Ours would be near the river. It would be absurd and wonderful and probably not the first thing we do, but the idea won’t go away.

An example of the garden amphitheater.

And…that’s all! (cue nervous laugh).

We’ve become those people

We’re deep in gardening books. We’re watching Monty Don like it’s a certification program. We’re having conversations that would have bored our past selves to tears.

Sean being a good sport about his new role as Head Gardener here at the château.

Our son recently said, Why are you always watching garden videos?

And our daughter, without looking up, said: Because they want to make a garden like The Secret Garden.

She knows us so well.

That’s the whole thesis.

So this is the beginning of our garden chapter. We’re still in the phase where everything looks bare and you feel slightly unqualified to be making decisions about acres of land. But we’re noticing patterns, collecting information, and starting to plan.

I’ll share what we learn as we go. What works in our region. What we plant. What we regret. What surprises us. What the land seems to want (and reject). And how we’re trying to design something that feels both beautiful and livable.

Both are part of the story.

For paid subscribers, the companion Private Chapter is up:

Private Chapter: The Château Garden Dossier

It’s our working plan, with zones, priorities, and the first 90 days.

À bientôt,
Kamille

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A note for new readers: we’re an American family living in rural France, restoring a small château, and writing it all down here.

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