The Japanese garden

 

Here, shapes and colours contrast with the elegant sobriety of the château itself. Created by Berthe de Ganay during the Roaring Twenties, this is in reality an Anglo-Japanese garden. Berthe designed it with the help of Kitty Lloyd Jones, a student of Gertrude Jekyll, who invented the principle of the English mixed-border.

 

The Far East is brought to mind by the interplay of “cloud” pruning, a Japanese tradition, with shrubs and bushes from a variety of regions.

 

Daffodils, tulips, hyacinths all blossom here in the spring, while autumn takes on flamboyant colours heralded by Japanese maples, copper beeches and liquidambar trees.

 

Savour the view of the Japanese garden from the terrace of La Foulerie tea room.