Garden design and landscaping on the Riviera

The plants that cope are the ones already growing wild on the hills behind the coast: olives, cistus, lavender, rosemary, and the scrub of the garrigue and maquis. Once they're established, most need little or no summer watering. A green English lawn is the thirstiest thing you can plant here, and a drought order can stop you watering it. Ask the paysagiste to mark on the plant list which plants will need water after their first two summers.

New planting needs regular water for its first summer or two, and you won't be there to give it. Drip lines on a timer put water at the roots at night, which is when the rules still let you water at the alerte drought level. Ask for a controller that a caretaker or the jardinier can check remotely, and for a plan of where the lines run.

A rainwater tank helps with both. The Département des Alpes-Maritimes pays half the cost excluding tax of a tank holding at least 3,000 litres, up to 5,000 EUR. The tank must be buried or sit inside an existing building. Its rules name second homes explicitly, and there's no income condition. Apply before you order anything, because a tank bought first is refused (see our Alpes-Maritimes grants guide).

Most summers the préfet issues drought orders by area. At alerte, you can't water between 8 am and 8 pm. At alerte renforcée, gardens and beds can't be watered at all, day or night. Breaking an order can cost up to 1,500 EUR. Before you leave for the season, ask your caretaker or jardinier to follow the local notices on the government's VigiEau site.

On a Riviera plot, much of the cost sits in the ground before anything is planted. A slope means earthworks and terrace walls, which are slow, heavy work. Ask whether the stone from a fallen wall can be reused. If a small digger can't get up the lane or down the steps, earth and stone move by hand, so ask how the firm will reach the plot.

Trees and water come next. Felling a tree, or protecting an old olive while machines work round it, adds work, and tree surgery is often a separate trade. Drip irrigation adds pipework and a controller, though it saves replacing plants after a dry first summer. Ask whether carting away green waste is included.

Upkeep is priced by visits. A lawn and clipped hedges need someone every week or two in summer, while an established dry garden needs far fewer. A scrub-clearing zone adds a yearly clearing on top. Ask how many visits the contract covers and what each one includes.

Garden work is taxed at 20% TVA (French VAT), because French tax rules leave it out of the 10% rate for work on a house. Upkeep can earn an income-tax credit of 50% on up to 5,000 EUR of spending a year, so up to 2,500 EUR back. It covers mowing, pruning, hedge trimming and scrub clearing by a jardinier registered for services à la personne, or one you employ directly. Designing and building a garden, tree surgery and earthworks don't count. It applies to a second home, but only if your tax home is in France.

Get two written quotes for the same plan and plant list, with earthworks, walls, irrigation and planting on separate lines, so you compare like with like.