Hanging out in the hanging gardens

VEZAC, France-Anyone who knows me well knows I have no patience for groomed grounds and formal gardens, and much prefer what I once heard called "uncontrolled profusion." Yes, if something will grow and spread, that's what I plant.
I never, ever wanted a grownup yard.
But I went with friends to a French garden in the Dordogne called Marqueyssac, or The Hanging Gardens of Marqueyssac, and my hat is off to gardeners with this much control and sharp shears.
Look it up, and you'll see what I mean. To begin with, there are 150,000 boxwoods at Marqueyssac, none of them boxy or boring. They are planted in clumps, or clusters, and pruned by hand (twice a year) into geometric shapes, including one amazing area that looks like stones in a chateau. Another cluster resembles sheep, if the sheep were being herded and running side by side.
We're not talking typical topiary here, but more the look of a brain if it were huge and green. Almost the stuff of a sci-fi movie. The Blob, but green and made of boxwoods.
I love the holly at Callaway Gardens and the azaleas at Bellingrath and the wisteria at the Biltmore. Showy gardens usually have one thing that blows you away.
Here the vista is the best thing, with the Dordogne River and its tourist boats below, and in plain sight the houses built right into the cliffs at La Roque Gageac. You could plant one package of zinnia seeds and still have a remarkable garden with this view.
Even better, though, is the chateau that goes with the gardens, though the tail definitely wags the dog. It is simple but luxurious, and its most impressive feature is the roof. Made of limestone slabs, it weighs more than 500 tons.
Or that's what the tour brochure claims, and I don't know why you'd lie about the weight of your roof.
There are more than 4 miles of walkways at the gardens, and I might have made it 1 mile. I have an ailing foot, which means I must pace myself. But I did see the chapel and the pigeon pen and the astounding view before sitting to watch people thread through the boxwoods.
You can't help but notice the decorum in public places in France, the quiet voices that offer a "pardon" if you're bumped on a path. The children and dogs are better behaved than in our country, and neither runs wild through these gardens.
Nobody litters, either, and I could count on one hand the pieces of trash I've seen by the side of the road in miles of exploration. Southwest France is clean, and polite.
And the impressive flora isn't limited to formal gardens where you pay to walk around. I've seen banana trees, bamboo, magnolias, nandina and gardenia-all things that remind me of home-all around.
I always get eye-rolls when I return home with fancy French ideas for my sow's ear of a place in the hollow. This time it is a special way to prune the wisteria. My friend Robert Clay will be dismayed to hear about this. He always helps me with that annual chore.
On the side of a bistro, a mature wisteria was pruned to look like another tree, perhaps an oak, with its trunk supporting the green branches. Now, why wouldn't that work in Fishtrap Hollow?