A native Parisian, artist Cécile Daladier grew up in a town house overlooking Notre-Dame cathedral and the Seine. There, her father grew a leafy courtyard garden and cageless birds roamed around her bedroom. She spent weekends and holidays at her grandparents’ country house, enjoying long walks in the surrounding forest and helping her grandmother tend to her flower-filled garden. Being close to nature is a cherished memory from her upbringing. “Nothing specific sparked my love for gardening, it was always there,” she says.

Today, Cécile lives with her husband Nicolas Soulier (an architect), a dog and two cats in a stone farmhouse perched at an altitude of a half mile (800 m) above sea level in the south-ern French region of Rhône, where grassy pastures meet rocky mountaint...