Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Horticultural heaven
Francis Cabot to talk about his world-famous Les Quatre Vents gardens
click to enlarge
If you've ever spent any time languidly gazing out onto that patch of hardscrabble dirt and weeds in your front yard, dreamily wishing it could be whipped up into a well-manicured, multicultural garden with topiary flourishes, reflection pools, exotic plants and charming Japanese huts, prepare to feel jealous.
Francis Cabot, proprietor and director of Les Quatre Vents gardens in Quebec, Canada, is the next presenter at Colorado College's Landscape and the Built Environment Lecture Series. After inheriting his well-to-do parents' summer estate at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River in the Charlevoix region of Quebec in 1975, Cabot began a painstaking process of designing the sprawling estate, which includes a handcrafted Japanese viewing pavilion overlooking a lake, a three-story Pigeonnier building with a reflection pool, lots of little sculptures that have their own musical accompaniment, topiary bread loaves, and lots of other spectacular examples of a good sense of gardening humor and beauty.
Cabot is the author of The Greater Perfection, a 328-page coffee-table book featuring photographs by five renowned photographers.
-- Noel Black
capsule
"The Maturing of a Garden: Gardens of Les Quatre Vents, Quebec"
A lecture by Francis Cabot
Packard Hall at Colorado College
Tues., Oct. 21 at 11 a.m.
Free; Call 389-6606.
