Wildflowers in the Alpes-Maritimes - Les fleurs, ça ne se mangent pas!

I became interested in wildflowers of the Alpes-Maritimes, that wonderfully diverse region in Southeastern France that extends from the Mediterranean to the Alps, when a photographer friend showed me his close-ups of orchids, cistus and other flowers. Flowers? I’d had only heard of Roman ruins, topless beaches and the azure-blue of the sea. I knew nothing about the flora.

I already had the 35mm camera and lenses, and I bought a book, which became my bible—Fleurs du basin Méditerranéen by Fernand Nathan. I spent numerous hours at our house near Grasse and on nature trails of Sophia Antipolis, photographing wildflowers.

Back at the mas, we marked off our wildflower areas so we could see which flowers returned. The month of May was off limits to any lawnmower or bushwacker. The lawn looked a bit untidy, but we were waiting for that profusion of color.

We had been warned about grazing sheep, destroying photo ops. We didn’t know of any sheep in our area. And we hadn't seen our gardener since October. But early one morning our twice-a-year gardener arrived. Needless to say, he considered flowers superfluous, a luxury because they could not be eaten. --Les fleurs, ça ne se mangent pas! Before we could stop him, our gardener had mowed through our areas of wildflowers. Our flowers had disappeared under the whirling blade. . . . Gone were buttercup, orchids, poppies and gladiolas. Maybe the following year. . . .

For more information on wildflowers in the Alpes-Maritimes, visit here.