Tag: www.chateauversailles.fr

Cydonia oblonga

Quince is an unruly, untidy tree. It spreads outwards almost as much as it grows upwards and easily reaches 4m/14′ in both directions. Its branches crisscross and weave through each other in a most undisciplined manner. This time last year I was in the Potager du Roi at Versailles where I happened upon two quince trees which had been ‘trained’. The main trunk had been stopped at around 1m/3′ and four main branches had been directed outwards and upwards like a goblet, these in turn being stopped at 3m/10′ long. The bones of the structure were still visible, but tangled around them in a cloud of fury, the trees were growing as they pleased. Several golden pear-like fruit were hidden among the leaves. I leaned in close to smell them.

What is the smell of quince? It is green, fresh, cool, and constant at its base, then there is an elusive sweet intrigue which grows stronger as they ripen. Place some in a bowl and they scent a room pleasantly, whilst looking magnificent. It is this aromatic quality which makes quince so valuable for cooking. Constance Spry has an excellent recipe for ‘Partridges with Quince’ in her eponymous 1956 tome. Quinces are hard and bitter when raw, but transform into a soft, silky, delicately fragrant and delicately pink elixir when cooked. It is alleged that they can be bletted like medlars, but, as with medlars, I remain unconvinced.

The immature fruit are covered in a grey-ish fur which brushes off to reveal the golden skin beneath. Ancient texts are gloriously vague and at times contradictory, which leaves me free to claim that the fabled golden apples of the Hesperides were quinces. This was the prize which Aphrodite received in the divine beauty contest which sparked the Trojan War. The ancient Greeks thought the trees sprang up from her footsteps, and this association with love and fertility endures in the Balkan tradition of planting Cydonia to mark the birth of a baby.

Quince has previously enjoyed a higher cultural and culinary status in the UK than it does currently. It was an early introduction, recorded first in 1275AD when Edward I planted four at the Tower of London. It was a traditional planting in apple and pear orchards, a practice which was exported to the colonies of New England, but which fell from favour in old England. Its time may be returning given the fashion for Middle Eastern cookery and a broadening taste for exotic aromatics.

It is not a difficult tree to grow and tolerates a wide range of soils so long as they are not prone to water-logging. The simple white five-petalled flower (this is a member of the rose family), is borne early so can be prone to frost damage, and the fruit need a good summer to ripen fully, so a sheltered west or southwest aspect is probably best. The spreading habit of the quince makes it difficult to accommodate in small gardens, although there are more quinces growing in gardens than first meets the eye. Quince A and Quince B are the most common rootstocks for cultivated pears.

IMG_0635

Helianthus annuus

The power of plants never ceases to amaze me. I have sunflowers growing in the cutting beds which are already over 2m/6′ tall, and the solstice is barely behind us. As the annuus indicates, sunflowers are an annual, and each one has grown from the familiar seed, encased in its smart black or black and white jacket. Mine are, as yet, just infants, although they are flowering well. Sunflowers will more typically reach 3m/10′ and Guinness World Record is held by a specimen which reached an improbable 9.17m/31.1′ tall. I have cut a selection as pictured below. It is not my first attempt to recreate a famous series of pictures, but I find the flowers difficult to position in the vase to create the right effect. Perhaps this is the advantage of painting, that real-world flowers can be positioned on canvas in an ideal distribution. Van Gogh considered yellow to be the colour of happiness, allegedly. I enjoy the classic yellow sunflowers – they are joyful indeed, but I find the fiery oranges and reds thrilling, especially so early in the year. They are proving useful as a cut flower too as once the flower at the apex is removed as many as six secondary flowers are developing lower down. These are smaller and less dramatic than the primary flower, but more amenable to being placed in a vase.

Sunflowers were an early domestication around 5000 years ago in what we now call the southern United States or Mexico, where all but three of the species are native. The early European settlers recognised its value immediately and seed was in Europe by the sixteenth century. Its value was always aesthetic as well as comestible. Although Van Gogh is most famously associated with the sunflower, Van Dyck painted a self-portrait with sunflowers larger than his own head in 1633AD. Louis XIV pressed it into service, somewhat inevitably. At Versailles, down each side of the Tapis Vert, there are urns of extraordinary size set on pedestals. Some are carved with tournesols. The work is exquisite. The cut of the line is so clean that they could be fresh from the stonemason’s yard. They are one of the highlights of a walk around the garden there. Was Louis happy with the superficial association of the flower and the sun, or was he trading on the reputed heliotropism, that the flower follows the sun during the course of the day? I suspect both.

In truth, only the immature flower bud tracks the sun, something it does even on a cloudy day. The mature inflorescence is almost always fixed facing east. This means that the flower head warms quickly and early in the day, when pollinating insects are still active in hot climates. It also ensures the best ripening conditions for the tightly packed, indeed, perfectly packed, seeds which follow pollination. The flowers of the central disc are arranged in interpenetrating left and right spirals which conform to the Fibonacci series of numbers. It is the most efficient arrangement in space possible.

IMG_0543