Pépinière du Palais is a pocket-sized nursery on the banks of the Palais, in Haute-Saintonge, at the heart of a Natura 2000 site. Little land, mother plants, time and hands: everything we sell has grown here.
A wooded valley along the Palais. Beside the oaks grow beeches, black alders (the local “vergnes”), acacias and blackthorns. Water is never far away: where it comes to the surface, rushes and water mint grow. Here we plant without upsetting anything: a hole, a plant, and the rest of the land stays untouched.
Each species has its own way of multiplying, and we follow it:
A fig cutting spends a few months in a pot. Bare-root plants grow for up to two years in open ground and leave from November to March, outside frost periods.
Planted in November 2025: 20 hazels, 15 figs, 10 vines, raspberries of 4 or 5 varieties, thornless blackberries and thyme. About 3 m between two plants of the same species, never more than 6 m between two species.
Our potting compost comes from the land: leaves and twigs of many species, kitchen-garden leftovers, hen-house manure, fine soil from molehills and topsoil. It matures on site, in a heap. All our pots come from an old nursery: nothing bought, everything reused. Bring back your empty pots, they will be used again.
80 cm to 1 metre wide, 3 to 9 metres long, framed with logs. Each bed is an ecosystem: wild herbs grow until spring, pulled by hand, left in place. The soil feeds itself.
Plenty of mulch. The only input from elsewhere is horse manure, loaded onto a trailer five minutes from here. In a year or two, the soil will be self-sufficient.
Our mother plants went into the ground in November 2025, just before a first summer of severe heatwaves. They are settling in: propagation in numbers will come within two to three years. Until then, we offer small batches. What is ready is marked “available”, the rest “coming soon”. The rest of the story will be told in the Carnets du Palais.
