The domain of Orvès is FREELY OPEN TO THE VISIT SATURDAY 16 AND SUNDAY 17 SEPTEMBER, from 10 to 18 hours (free entrance); guided tours of the garden will also be organized (at 11 and 16 hours). The dining room, on the ground floor of the late 17th century bastide, with walls painted by Pierre Deval, as well as the painter’s studio, will be exceptionally open to the public.
ON SATURDAY 16, AT 5 pm, CONCERT of the clarinet ensemble ARUNDO TOULON MÉDITERRANÉE. Some of the authors of the Salon du livre du lendemain will already be present on Saturday afternoon (Bernard Alunni, Marie-Cristine Lemayeur, Guillemette Resplandy-Taï).
SUNDAY 17 will be held in the gardens the 9th SALON DU LIVRE DE JARDIN DU DOMAINE D'ORVÈS, with a dozen authors present and six conferences-meetings (see in this agenda the file dedicated to it). The Jardiniers bookshop of the Domaine du Rayol will present, in front of the bastide, a wide choice of books, for adults and children, on gardens, animals, plants, nature, ecology… Complete program on the site of the domain of Orvès, heading "News".
Homemade Mediterranean cuisine will be offered for lunch on both days.
Contact: domain: 04 94 20 53 25; for the Days: 06 70 46 80 68; for the Book Fair: 06 18 19 38 49
The estate of Orvès was one of the first gardens in the Var to be labeled «Remarkable Garden», in 2006. It extends over 8 hectares.
When Pierre Deval, intimate painter, bought this property in 1925, La Valette-du-Var was a particularly privileged market gardening village, protected from the wind by Mount Coudon culminating at 700 meters above sea level, watered by abundant sources, mainly a producer of violets and strawberries. Orvès overlooked the bell tower of this charming town. Its abundant water captured by the action of two norias passed through pipes or «chutes» to water a watercress and entire fields of artichokes, leeks, or even arums.
Since 1992, under the influence of the owners' daughter and her children, who have taken up the torch, the garden has evolved with the introduction of plants from around the world, while respecting its Provençal garden character.
The enclosed garden, all terraced, which surrounds the house is gradually lost in the surrounding scrubland, mixing native plants and plants from other parts of the world, which surprise visitors at the bend of the paths.
In addition to the constant presence of water in the form of gullies, fountains, false springs, swampy pond, one can admire various remarkable plants (old roses, many varieties of strawberry trees and mimosas, Daphniphyllum, Puya, Cocculus, Cornus, Grevillea, Magnolia, Phytollaca), which transform the garden and scrubland into a test garden.