The Renaissance gardens of Villandry

What it is

Villandry is one of the last great Renaissance châteaux built along the Loire. Its gardens are a twentieth-century recreation: Joachim Carvallo, a Spanish doctor, bought the estate in 1906 and replaced an English-style park with formal terraces based on old plans. The best known is the ornamental kitchen garden, nine squares where cabbages, leeks and chard are planted in patterns with standard roses, as monks once grew them. Above it, box hedges are cut into hearts, fans and daggers and filled with tulips in spring and begonias or dahlias in summer. It is replanted twice a year.

Before you go

• Start at the high viewpoint behind the château. The patterns only read from above.
• The spring planting peaks in April and May, the summer one from July to September.
• Allow two hours for the gardens alone.

The flowers you will see

TulipSpring-blooming bulbs with showy, cup-shaped flowers in many coloursRoseWoody perennial plants with showy, often fragrant flowers in many coloursBegoniaA vast group of colourful, shade-loving flowering plants from warm climatesDahliaA bushy perennial with tuberous roots and bright, star-shaped blooms

Also part of it, and being written: Lavandula.

More in France

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