Farewell, Noisette, we’ll be thinking of you”

Sad news today from the mairie of Saint Barthélémy d’Agenais in Lot-et-Garonne who inform me that Hazel Vincent, whom we all knew as Noisette47, died on the 20th of May 2025.

She joined our forum on the 25th of January 2013; her seven thousand and sixty-eight messages testify to her formidable contribution. Her postings were informative, helpful, energetic, occasionally combative, sometimes acerbic, very witty, and always fertile with enormous horticultural knowledge.

Hazel (translated her name to ‘Noisette’ due to what she called “the French inability to produce a remotely acceptable pronunciation of the English ‘Hazel’) had trained as a NNEB nurse, but a fortuitous encounter led her to run a garden design and maintenance business, which she described as “the best thing she ever did” and which nurtured the seed of a passion that became her raison-d’être. Seeking a pen pal to improve her French established a link with France where, some twenty-one years ago, she settled with her husband Ian, renovated an old barn and created a garden; this proved a struggle, due that what she refers to as “two huge errors which I should have foreseen but couldn't have done anything about... one, the slope and the other, the soil type”; the difficulties were exacerbated by the notorious complications associated with French officialdom and bureaucracy.

While planning her “first holiday for twenty years”, illness sadly struck and prevented a much-anticipated trip to India.

Alerted by one of her posts which had referred to an MRA scan, I started a correspondence with her that continued to within a few days of her death. On the 17th of December 2024, Hazel surprised me by requesting: “When you do write again, I’d like a long and full account of your life from birth to the present day”. Despite prestigious frequentations over fifty years, writing an autobiography was something I would never have envisaged, but doing so has probably contributed more to my life than to what was left of hers.

Hazel decided to title our conversation ‘Courage’, and she showed plenty of it during the frustrating delays, postponements and cancellations the French medical systems are heir to; the last six months, despite being a rollercoaster of countless medications, equal periods of optimism and despair, proved a slow descent towards a conclusion she bravely, sometimes brazenly, stared forthrightly in the face. She was courageous throughout, and there were periods when her joie-de-vivre was heartbreakingly dominant, for instance, in response to a reference I had made to commercial perfume, on the 25th of January 2025: “I am/was a gardener for Heaven's sake! A splash of Miss Dior (going back, Fendi ) has been quite sufficient when leaving the house for anything but work :-). Nothing can compete with the smell of an old-fashioned shrub rose, Violette de Toulouse or an oriental lily ...not to mention the tender jasmines, citrus and frangipanis on the terrasse! Bisous à vous deux....” And on the 31st of January 2025: “Ian cooked fillet steak, chips and green beans on Wednesday and I can honestly say that there isn't a Michelin starred restaurant on the planet that could have produced something so wonderfully appreciated .”

An operation was planned for the 30th of April. It was cancelled, after diagnostical reversals. At sixty-six, she died tragically young, having raged against the politics, the bureaucracy, and the inclemency of extreme weather, but never against the dying of the light which she faced with calm acceptance, her penultimate message, on the 1st of May 2025, reading: 'Adieu' seems appropriate, I was a firm believer in my 'Ange-guardien'. It looks as though he's called time a bit early
Lots of love,
Hazel xx”

And, finally, on the 15th of May 2025, with six days to live: “I'm cautiously optimistic that I 'll be around for a while yet. I've regained my appetite and I've been able to totter around on the terrace watering and clearing up all the old, dead leaves that accumulated in the temporary conservatory. It's wonderful to have the summer setting in place....al fresco eating, surrounded by citrus trees and scented, exotic climbers ”

She bequeaths a huge legacy to the forum where, for a dozen years, her repartee with, and devotion to others, proved indefatigable.

She also leaves my wife and me with a perpetual memorial, right outside our conservatory door where our pond testifies to her recent, brilliant, and now flowering suggestions. We dedicate the delicacy of this resulting Iris Ensata to her memory:

Iris ensata

 

How very sad noticed she hadn't been on for a while thought just busy in the garden.

Rest in peace Noisette xx

She has the most wonderful standard wisteria I was most envious of them beautifully trained by a wonderful gardener . she be saddly missed by the forum and friends

 

Many thanks for letting us know @LawnAndOrder
I will always remember her.

 

Thanks for letting us know @LawnAndOrder .
She sent me a fair few plants over the years and we had a few good chats from time to time, always looking on the bright side.
She has been and will continue to be missed by all I'm sure.
RIP, Hazel.

 

That is very sad news, I will miss her, as I'm sure everyone will.
Thanks for letting us know @LawnAndOrder, your words are a lovely tribute to her, and it's nice you have that Iris to remember her by.

 

Very sad news @LawnAndOrder , thank you for letting us all know.
I always enjoyed & appreciated her posts on the forum, she was so friendly and knowledgable too.

 

Thank-you for letting us know. Read her contributions with great pleasure. Sad to lose another long time member.

 

Thank you @LawnAndOrder .
She had told some of us of her diagnosis, but I had hoped it wasn't so soon. She was a great friend to many of us on the forum, and I will always look at the gorgeous peony from her seeds and remember.
Please send Ian our condolences.

 

I didn't know her personally, although I regularly read her posts. It was clear how knowledgeable she was, and those forum members who knew her for years will miss her terribly.
A very difficult time for her family and friends.

Thank you for letting everyone know @LawnAndOrder .

 

A wonderful farewell @LawAndOrder and thank you for sharing the personal messages.

 

Thank you for letting us know what has happened to Noisette47.
RIP. Losing anyone with such a fount of knowledge is always sad. My sympathy to her family at this distressing time. Her memory will continue in the plants and information she shared with so many.

 

It was too much of a shock this morning when I read this thread.
I might be wrong but I always assumed that Noisette47 here is the same we had in the old Gardeners World forum. The more I was surprised to see that Noisette47, Hazel as I learned today, was here active since 2013. You remember how many of the GW forum switched to GC and how confusing and overwhelming the first months in March 2024 were.
I have to admit that I’m very sad about the loss. I found Hazel, Noisette47, not only very knowledgeable and helpful, but she had character. LawnandOrder couldn’t describe it better.

I had to write this.

 

I second that @simone_in_wiltshire. I also thought she was from GW.