Le Petit Pas - France

With pecan cultivation beginning to gain serious attention in France as a resilient and valuable tree crop, Le Petit Pas presented a wonderful opportunity to design for both the future of a family and the future productivity of their land.

Currently used partly as a family holiday residence with guest accommodation, the long-term intention is for Le Petit Pas to become the family's permanent home. This created an unusual opportunity: to establish a productive landscape now, allowing its trees, soils and ecological relationships to mature alongside the family's plans for the property.

Following site assessment, soil analysis and detailed field observations, We developed a regenerative agroforestry system with pecan production at its heart. The site's biologically active clay soils and mild Atlantic climate provide promising conditions, while cultivar selection focused on flavour and kernel quality, reliable production, disease resistance and complementary pollination within this relatively humid climate. Rather than creating a conventional orchard, the pecans form the productive backbone of a diverse, layered system designed to build soil, manage water, increase biodiversity and strengthen the resilience of the land over time. By establishing the system well before permanent occupation, the family is investing in a landscape that can be entering meaningful production just as they become ready to manage and harvest it themselves.

Around this productive core, private gardens and orchards are protected through carefully positioned vegetative buffers, while the guest area develops into its own edible landscape. A small food forest and picking route invite B&B guests to wander, harvest berries and fruit, and gather fresh herbs for the kitchen, creating a gentle connection between hospitality, food and the land that produces it.