Tools & Gardening Tips
The Gardening Gesture: Juliette Charpentier-Seguin
The Gardening Gesture opens a series of encounters around gestures and tools.
For this first encounter, we meet Juliette Charpentier-Seguin, trained at the École du Paysage de Versailles, today responsible for a historic monument.
Based in the north of Perche, she is gradually renovating a town house, its garden and greenhouse.
What has influenced the design of your garden?
Gardens visited and loved, particularly those of Gertrude Jekyll, including Bois des Moutiers, Claude Monet’s gardens, and the glasshouses and flower carpets of Kew Gardens.
Do you spend a lot of time gardening?
I wish I could dedicate more time to it. I particularly enjoy clearing rose and hydrangea beds at the end of the season, and planting endlessly. Late afternoons are my favourite, those heavy summer evenings still warm from the heat of the day.
You use a Japanese secateur, what do you like about it?
The cut is much easier and cleaner. Its refined design makes it stand out, I have no shame leaving it lying around!
What sensations does it give you when you use it?
A sense of efficiency and solidity, an excellent grip.
What gesture do you particularly enjoy performing with this secateur?
I use it as much for pruning roses and shrubs as for cutting a few flowers, in the garden or in the greenhouse.
Secateur used: Japanese Pro secateur
What feeds your eye or your practice today?
Visiting gardens, reading botanical books, listening to BBC Gardener’s World…
Who are the people whose work or approach inspire you?
Monty Don, Martha Stewart, Capability Brown, Louis Benech…
Thank you very much Juliette for taking the time to answer our questions.
© Photographs by Eléonore Wallet. All rights reserved, reproduction prohibited.