French Planters and Jardinieres

OR a garnish of fresh vegetables, cooked, diced, and served around a dish of meat, OR it could be making reference to a European ground beetle (or beetles that attack plants in kitchen gardens) OR female gardener!

That’s a lot of definition for one word.  So when horticulturist, garden designer, and writer Gertrude Jekell (1843-1932) quoted….

There are some English words which have no equivalent in French, but then there are a great many more French words … for which we have no English. One of these is jardinière. Even in French it does not quite rightly express its meaning, because the obvious meaning of jardinière is female gardener, whereas what we understand by it … is a receptacle for holding pot-plants.

…It was quite fitting for this post.

Jardinieres are typically decorative and can be used not only as garden accents and for raising culinary herbs, but can be used as decorative items inside the home as well.

Iron rectangular trough Planter/Jardiniere at RF Antiques – This planter would be perfect to grow herbs in.

We lend reference to the JARDINIER as a flower type receptacle sometimes on short feet or legs and sometimes not.  The French themselves often call versions of this type vessel when it’s placed on the table as a Cache Pot (which in literal terms means: hide the pot–pronounced kash-pot).