It’s been a while since I left you admiring the ‘outer’ gardens at the Chateau D’Angers, so today we’re heading inside, and as you can probably guess from the title there’s vineyards and so much more to see on the ramparts.
But let’s start at ground level, in the Court Gardens which was created in the middle of the 20th century when the castle was open to the public. It’s design follows the rules of the medieval monastic gardens, but also takes inspiration from the Italian Renaissance.
The yew trees which meet to form an arbour is a great feature and very striking, but what’s also interesting is that this garden uses manual or thermal weeding and biological control in its maintenance - and with those box borders that’s quite an achievement. They use Lacewing larvae to eradicate the caterpillars of box tree months, which can snaffle a box plant almost overnight, as well as using pheromone traps to attract and catch male moths, and so prevent breeding and egg laying. While box looks great, is slow growing and a joy to cut it isn’t something I’d have in our garden again as without this rigour it can be gone in a number of weeks, as we learnt in our last garden.
But let’s head up to the ramparts, well let’s first admire the Acanthus, which I would absolutely have in my garden here.
I told you there were vines here, and while I know we were in France, I’m not sure I expected to find them here in the ramparts, but here they are indeed. The first planting of vines again took place after the opening of the chateau to the public in 1961, and it was replanted in the 90s with the Chenin Blanc variety of grape, which can be used to produce sweet, dry and sparkling wines.
There’s 150 vines spread over 5 rows and at each end there is a rosebush which acts as a barometer to the health of the vines, and like the Court Garden below it’s maintained by biological control.
There was so much more than the vines though, including this more natural area and beehive, and the orchard which I could only see from above.
The area was closed off to the public but it looked an interesting place to have a nose around, as often the more private parts of public gardens do!
I wasn’t surprised to see the medieval looking medlar in the grounds, though given that the interior gardens generally seemed to have had a facelift when the castle opened to the public, it might not be as old as you first thought. I was pleased to spot plants, like the smokebush, which I do already have in my garden and the magnificent rosebush in flower.
And I love to see other gardens with naughty plants - as I don’t think this one was supposed to be there.
But for me it’s not just the grand scale of the gardens, or even the plants - it’s often about noticing the little things, like the plants growing amongst the slate quite happily, which given the temperatures they’d had for a few weeks before our arrival was amazing. And of course slate holds the heat, so those plants must have been baking.
I’ll end with some valerian obscuring or enhancing the view from the castle walls of the Loire, and despite the clouds it wasn’t a bad day at all.
Thanks for joining me for this latest post on our train trip to Paris, Angers and Tours - please check out my other posts from our trip.
