Gardens of the Loire - Day 1 - Home from home

I'm sitting at the computer having just returned from my annual foray into gorgeous gardens with my lovely Mum, and wondering where to start! This is the third holiday Mum has organised for us, we started with Florence in 2013 which you can read about here, here and here, last year we explored Somerset which you can read about here, here and here. 

This year we set of to the Loire Valley in France with Brightwater Holidays. We spent a day travelling across the channel and through France on the train and arrived in Anger ready to gorge on gardens. It didn't disappoint and it'll take me a number of posts to do it justice. I promise not to post all of my 486 photos (taken over 3 days only!) but it may take me a while to edit them down and still do the gardens justice.

The first garden we visited was Jardin du Petit Bordeaux at Saint-Biez-en-Belin, ironically an English style garden!

Amazingly this garden has been built by a couple in just 28 years, there are photographs of the empty clearing in the woods that they started with. Now the garden is a delightfully shady glade filled with shrubs and perennials that looks like it has always been there. We visited on a gloriously sunny morning but the garden is cool and very shady so it was fascinating to see the planting, with some things I really didn't expect!

With the house nestled at the back of the garden, paths snake around ponds full of amorous and extremely noisy frogs...

through impressive mature trees and shrubs

and lead around the house which is almost buried in the garden.

Pergolas and summer houses offer shelter along the way...

...amongst beautiful Rhododendrons...

...statuesque Candelabra primulas...

...fantastic combinations of Maples (amazingly 90+ varieties) and Bamboo...

and columns of clipped Yew.

There were some flamboyant Peonies flowering, managing well in the shade...

...and a myriad of Hosta variations...

 

and a new favourite for me Podophyllum 'spotty dotty'. This I will be trying to track down and add to my garden in a moist and shady spot.

Striking Silver Birches amongst undulating clipped Box and dramatic Cercis canadensis.

  Banks of Rhododendron and Azaleas.

Also new to me, Sinocalycalycanthus raulstonii 'hartlage wine', a graceful shrub with beautiful flowers and a more familiar ragged Silene

And just to torture ourselves we visited the nursery area which contained pretty much everything we would have wanted and at very reasonable prices - typical!

This garden has won national awards in France and I can see why, it is known as the Jardin d'atmospheres and it certainly had atmosphere in spades. It is off the beaten track but well worth a visit and has a pretty shop with an insect collection collected by the owners son.

A very good start to our French garden odyssey.