This year has been exceptionally busy at Château de la Boutinière, with many different projects happening at once. One of the biggest decisions we made was to tackle the wedding garden. Weddings are going to be a crucial part of our long-term finances, and we knew from the start that a garden like this would take time to establish properly.
When we began, it quickly became clear that this was not going to be a simple project. We joked about trying to make a park out of it, but what we actually found was rock after rock — and not just any rock, but flint. It is incredibly tough and heavy, and it destroys tools with ease. In the end, we had no choice but to hire a 22-ton digger. And yes, I can now say I have experience operating a very large breaker on a digger.
Every time we thought we had removed all the stone we needed to, we uncovered more. These rocks became central to the whole design. They had to be lifted out to allow us to install drainage and other essential groundwork. With the help of very good friends from the UK, who worked alongside Zion, we began building stone walls around the wedding garden.
These walls now form pathways leading from the château towards what will eventually become the wedding barns. It has been relentlessly muddy, thanks to near-constant rain, but the results are finally visible. The walls are built entirely from the stone we pulled out of the ground. Much of it had to be broken down with hydraulic breakers, which is dangerous work – rather like smashing glass.
Using the stone from the land itself was important to us. The walls needed to sit naturally alongside the existing buildings, particularly the old farmhouse dating back to 1100 that overlooks the garden. Imported stone would never have matched. As it is, the walls already look as though they have always been there.
While we had the large digger on site, we decided to excavate the swimming pool. Given the trouble we had encountered with rock elsewhere, we were slightly apprehensive. However, the pool is located in the field next to the château rather than in the front garden, and the soil there was completely different. It was pure clay, and we managed to dig the entire pool area in just three and a half hours.
At the moment, this has left us with a very large hole filled with mud and water. We are determined to have it finished by next summer. Until then, it has jokingly been referred to as a mud bath. With La Roche-Posay just down the road, perhaps our mud is just as beneficial.
Alongside the garden, work has continued on the wedding barns and gîtes. We purchased two additional barns from our neighbour to complement the one we already owned. One will become a dining hall and the other a professional kitchen. We have started knocking through between them to allow easy movement. At the same time, we created two gîtes and completed work on the hunting lodge.
We also spent time building the steps and laying slabs in the wedding garden. In total, we mixed six cubic metres of concrete by hand, which was, frankly, madness.
One of the more unexpected challenges this year involved sourcing large cast iron urns. We already owned two at the rear of the château, which were moved into the hunting lodge for the Château DIY Christmas series. We liked them there so much that we decided not to move them back and instead find more to use outside.
The only viable source turned out to be China, with a minimum order of five. Our plan was to use one as a fountain and sell the extras to cover the cost. Handing over a deposit without any guarantee they would ever arrive was slightly nerve-wracking.
Four months later, we received a call to say they had arrived at a port in northern France. This led to the small matter of finding an import agent – in French – and eventually, five enormous crates arrived at the château. They were so large that the lorry could not come down the drive, so the tractor had to be pressed into service to move them.
We are now the proud owners of five beautiful, towering cast iron urns – and another chapter in the wedding garden story completed.