A seventeenth century chateau with a 50 hectare park and gardens, restored in the late 1980s and early 90s, with excellent views over the Oise valley. There are terraces, parterres, a gazebo and orangerie. Each year, an artist is commissioned to produce a work for the north terrace.
The royal Château at Amboise is a château located in Amboise, in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France. Built on a promontory overlooking the Loire River to control a strategic ford that was replaced in the Middle Ages by a bridge, the château began its life in the eleventh century, when the [...]
Few gardens make such spectacular use of tranquil water as Chantilly. A castle was built on a rock in a marshy forest, with the lake serving as a moat. A renaissance garden was made (c 1550) and transformed into the present high baroque garden by Andre le Notre in 1663. Water, aggrandised by design, remains [...]
Jardin du Carrousel is the official name for the space around the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, built to celebrate Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz (a carrousel is a horse parade). Jacques Wirtz was landscape architect for the space around the arch. It looks entirely appropriate on plan but is less successful on the ground. Strips [...]
The farm of Bois Richeux, situated in the heart of the Carnutes’ Forest, is one of the oldest farms in France, dating back to Celtic times. In 1178, it became the Villa Franche of the Chapter of Chartres and hosted the first free farmers. Throughout the entire Middle Ages, it was an important fortified farm, [...]
The Bamboo Plantation is here not only to let you discover, learn about and appreciate just bamboo, but all vegetal life. Run by a management that thinks that a botanical garden is not just a collection of rare plants, the Bambouseraie brings together people, facilitates exchanges, crossing cultures and linking knowledge. In this spirit, the [...]
Opened as a botanical garden in 1798, the Angers Jardins des Plantes became a public park in 1898, designed by Edouard Andre. The sweeping lines of the paths, the well-placed statues and the gardenesque planting are characteristic of his style.
The largest Cistercian abbey of Ile-de-France was built between 1228 and 1235. It became a cotton mill after the French Revolution, a hospital during the First World War and an international cultural centre after the Second World War. The grounds were also restored. A park was made in the nineteenth century park and a re-created [...]
The summer garden is a kind of modern knot garden with a very formal layout of clipped box in a square edged pattern. Each ‘box’ is then filled with a very natural planting of grasses and perennials but the colours are superb. Lots of golden yellow, deep red, burning oranges… The overall mix of formal [...]
Le Clos du Coudray – situated not far from Agapanthe, boasts over 8,000 varieties of plants in 25 themed gardens. A stream winds its way past rockeries, exotic gardens and gardens of roses, dahlias and grasses. A nursery sells seeds and plants.
