I snif more I had contracts above the head

OUR CORRESPONDENT AT TOURS.

Fancy borders in expensive gardens, it is him. Deductions of Wicker woven, also banks. Jean-Pierre Hardouin leading Architectures plant, a company of 5 employees to Cheillé (Indre-et-Loire), in the Loire-Anjou-Touraine regional natural park. "More that architecture, it's rather plant engineering, rectifies this hyperactive artisan of sixty years, also Deputy to the environment in its commune." The idea came to me on a trip with a family in Romania in the summer 1991. I fell mouth gawk at before the work of a grandfather that contained the banks of a Creek in assembling simple brush. "His return, he refines the concept: exit Wicker of the only production of baskets and to extend it to the second work of construction. The company moved to throw from Villaines-les-Rochers, one of the two French villages where survives the cultivation of this variety of willow. The following year, Hardouin won a tender to Niort, where local communities develop an area crossed by a channel. Jean-Pierre Hardouin feels, it sticks to the new trend of the Garden: "Well, immediately."Dissected or left plain, then braided Wicker composed immediately several metres landscape hedges without wait ten years as would be the case with boxwood or other plants. The name of this technique of learned entanglement: the fascinating. In the 1990s, Weirs grow around the headquarters of the European Union of football (UEFA) in Nyon (Switzerland). Follow the docks before the new national library of France, in Paris, noise walls along roads, ZAC, games areas, but also sensitive sites such as the pointe du Raz, the prehistoric cave of les Eyzies and the beach of le Havre. The elected representatives of Cahors fall under the spell. The former Minister of economy Edmond Alphandéry, from 1993 to 1995 during the Balladur Government, entrusted the development of a subdivision in the municipality of Longué (Maine-et-Loire). The international Festival of gardens (Loir-et-Cher) stretch, where Weirs delimit spaces of competitors from around the world, offers a beautiful permanent showcase.

In the wake of laudatory articles in the magazines of decoration and garden, a few big names in the CAC 40 have recourse to its services for their private homes: Bouygues, Lagardère and others adorn the gardens of their properties. The aesthetic argument double of asset prices: a braided hedge costs three times less expensive than a paved or down then grassed muret. The prosperous Hardouin company. It employs 25 employees and approaching the over-Rev early 2000. "I snif more, I had contracts above the head. "My turnover doubled and my accountant alerted me on the accounts of the company," he recalls. "I was taken aback," admits the craftsman. On reflection, I have reduced expenses by reducing the workforce to only central functions.

5 people provide the design and preparation of hedges, administration and commercial service. "The rest, I the contracts." "Today, I do work artisans basket 15 orders, not to mention the contractors of the construction industry for the establishment of structures", details Jean-Pierre Hardouin, which has 7 hectares of fields. Small Cheillé society inspired by the competitors. Hardouin is the leader of a market is not close to dry up, the small entrepreneur is be reassured despite sales stabilized around 600,000 to 700,000 euros. "I have reached the retirement age and I must convey my company." "Yet, I do find person," he said. Jean-Pierre Hardouin belongs to the eighth generation of osiériculteur, this job on horseback between agriculture (cultivation of osier) and crafts (manufacture of objects). In the nearby village of Villaines, 60 of them carry the manufacture of baskets, épaulés by the cooperative implementation by an auXIXe century priest. Former President of the cooperative, Jean-Pierre Hardouin is not soft with his colleagues: "who still buys baskets today, queries.". Apart from bakers, the market is in decline. "The figures give him reason. The cooperative was working 80 craftsmen-farmers at the beginning of the Decade. And his small company, which has inspired a half-dozen competitors, may disappear.