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It’s July and the work in the garden has diminished. If it’s not a summer full of thunderstorms, chances are your lawn has stopped growing so tasks are pretty much limited to deadheading and watering. And the holidays are starting, summer guests are arriving – perhaps you are planning some days out. 

If you love gardens, plants and flowers then you should have a look at the website for Les Jardins Remarquables (the remarkable gardens).

Overseen by the French government’s Ministry of Culture, the scheme was set up in 2004 to classify gardens, both public and private, which were important culturally, horticulturally (botanically), aesthetically or historically.

The gardens can be awarded their ‘remarkable’ label and it is valid for five years. After the five years, the label can be renewed, providing the garden still fits the criteria. The gardens’ owners must undertake proper maintenance and to open their gardens at least 40 days a year and six hours a day.

You may have noticed posters in your local area for the ‘Rendez-Vous Aux Jardins’, always held the first weekend in June and ‘Journées européennes du Patrimoine’ in September – remarkable gardens will be open at least one of these days but also, you will realise, at other times too.

To find out which gardens, locally, are open and when, you need to consult the interactive map on the , and search ‘jardins remarquables’. You can click on your region and then your department. Thumbnail pictures with brief garden details will then pop up – there are around 500 gardens included.

The CPJF (Le Comité des Parcs et Jardins de France) also have an on their website which includes even more parks and gardens throughout France, with over 1,500 listed. The CPJF brings together six national associations and 36 regional and departmental ones. It covers the entire country.

Some of the gardens we have featured in The Connexion in conjunction with Open Gardens/Jardins Ouverts are labelled as remarkable gardens, including Alain Gribet of Jardin Lacore and Nell and Philippe Wanty at Aboreteum La Sedelle.

Jardin Massey

I have visited quite a few remarkable gardens in our own little corner of the deep South West. Not far from the station in the university city of Tarbes, near the foothills of the Pyrenees, is the Jardin Massey. 

The garden was created in the 19th Century by botanist Placide Massey, who, although born in Tarbes, rose to become Louis-Philippe’s director of the nursery at the Trianon Palace and oversaw the Queen’s Potager (vegetable garden) at Versailles.

When he died in 1853 he gave Jardin Massey to the city of Tarbes. He made sure to include in his gift of the gardens, the winter garden orangery and the natural history museum, equity in the railways of the north (which already generated 2,000 francs a year) to cover upkeep of the garden.

The gardens, which extend to 11 hectares, have some significant trees. Small rills take water around the gardens, with heavy-headed blue hydrangeas dipping down towards the moisture. Ancient cloisters, from elsewhere in the region, have been re-erected here, having escaped the fate of others which were shipped to New York.

I was surprised by what I thought was a bronze sculpture around the edge of the large pond but it turned out to be a line of basking turtles. Ducks, geese, chickens and peacocks strut their stuff among beautifully planted beds which are changed with the season and are constructed to have layered planting.

On my last visit a theme of fiery colours mixed with dark leaved foliage plants was brilliantly executed. Previously they’d chosen a mix of pinks and whites, recalling the colours of spring blossom in high summer. If you have small people in tow, the Jardin Massey boasts a little train, resplendent in red, black and gold. It runs every day from 13:30 during school holidays. There is also an enclosure with animals (sheep, goats etc) and a sweet little café under the trees for the obligatory ice cream. 

Admission is free but you need tickets for the train.

Arboretum of La Coursiana

In the north of the Gers, the arboretum and gardens of La Coursiana are in one of ‘Les Plus Beaux Villages de France’ (The Most Beautiful Villages in France Association), La Romieu. It is on the Chemin de Saint Jacques (the Santiago de Compostella pilgrim way), where the section from Rocamadour meets that from Le Puy-en-Velay.

La Romieu is famous for its Collegiate church of Saint-Pierre built in the 14th Century and is filled with flowers and, surprisingly, stone cats. These began appearing in the 1990s. 

Sculptor Maurice Serreau, who had moved to the village from Orléans, was inspired by the legend of Angeline, an orphan who saved two cats from being eaten in a famine. The two cats’ progeny then prevented further famines by ridding the village of rats and mice.

There are, strictly speaking, four gardens at La Coursiana: the English garden, the vegetable garden, the arboretum and the medicinal plant and scented garden. My abiding memory is of masses of white blooms. A huge Romneya coulteri (California tree poppy) so captivated me that I had to have one. Its big bright bosses in the centre of each fluttery stark white flower, against the grey blue foliage, was magnificent.

After a few years mine is doing well but is just a baby compared to the spread of La Coursiana’s. 

Size also matters with their hydrangea Annabelle. A friend we’d taken with us bought me one from the small nursery on site. My Annabelle is propagated every year and she flourishes in sun or shade, producing enormous heads of ‘flowers’, starting lime green in colour and then turning pure white and then fading with a touch of blush.

There is a wonderful view of the church and towers from the gardens. Admission is €8.50, dogs on leads are allowed. Check for opening hours.

Enjoy your gardening break.