Les Plus Beaux Jardins
de France

Les Plus Beaux Jardins de France - (The Most Beautiful Gardens in France) - a network of gardens set up in 1998 to reveal a largely unknown botanical heritage to the public and to raise the art of gardening to the level of architecture and/or painting in the collective consciousness.
Each year the network undertakes numerous ventures such as:
- producing articles on the art of gardening or news regarding members of the network;
- organisation of events together with partners;
- promotion of the network through the creation of a digital community on the social networks.

Gardens belonging to the network of Le Plus Beaux Jardins de France are:

Château de Breteuil (Ile-de-France)
The Breteuil Palace is surrounded by a garden «à la française» and an English park. Everything in the palace and French garden evokes the friendship between Louis de Breteuil, minister to Louis XIV, and the famous author Charles Perrault.

Château de Saint-Jean de Beauregard (Ile-de-France)
The Saint-Jean de Beauregard Castle garden is one of the last stately vegetable gardens from the 1600s still existing in France. In every season the colours in the garden vary, creating a vegetable rainbow.

Château de Vaux-Le-Vicomte (Ile-de-France)
The Vaux-le-Vicomte gardens were the inspiration behind the creation of the Versailles gardens. Here André Le Nôtre established the main principles of the «à la française» style, applying new optical standards later to be amplified at Versailles, The Palace and gardens constitute a true work of art.

Château de Villandry (Loire Valley)
Villandry does not just offer one great garden, but several, each with its own style: the vegetable garden is inspired by the Renaissance, the herb garden and maze recall the Middle Ages, the Water garden is «à la française», the ornamental gardens are a fantasy of their creator, Joachim Carvallo, the Sun garden is a contemporary creation. Villandry's success lies in the extraordinary harmony between the different gardens and the Renaissance architecture of the Palace.

Château du Champ de Bataille (Normandy)
Spectacular is the key word when describing the Champ de Bataille Castle and Gardens. The baroque castle was built in the seventeenth century, probably by the royal architect Le Vau. The garden was possibly designed by Le Nôtre and certainly bears the mark of the maestro. Damaged over time, it has undergone extensive restoration maintaining its baroque imprint within a contemporary style in keeping with the genius loci.

Domaine de Chaumont-Sur-Loire (Val-de-Loire)
Chaumont-sur-Loire is famous for the International Garden Festival which has attracted gardeners and landscape designers of all nationalities since 1992. Innovation is the focus of the festival which changes theme each year.

Domaine de Courson (Ile-de-France)
The Domaine de Courson park is an example of the romantic style in France in the nineteenth century. Great names in the art of gardening have contributed to make Courson one of the most beautiful parks in France: Berthault, Imperial architect, the Bühler brothers, Ernest de Caraman, Timothy Vaughan and more recently Louis Benech.

Domaine Royal Château Gaillard (Amboise)
Domaine Royal Château Gaillard, the most Italian of the Châteaux of the Loire, cradle of Renaissance, is nestled in the heart of Amboise. He embodied the dream awakened by a young king after the discovery of “so many new beauties” during the first Italian campaign. This “unprecedented open-air acclimatization garden” created for 3 Kings of France by the most famous Master Gardener in Europe in 1500 Dom Pacello of Mercoliano hosted the 1st Gardens of the Renaissance, the 1st Orange trees in France and the 1st orangery called “Limonaia”.

Eyrignac & ses Jardins (Dordogne)
The Eyrignac gardens are famous for the exceptional topiary collection of 300 botanical specimens pruned into different shapes by gardeners in the traditional manner: with shears. The gardens «à la française» are elegant and peaceful around the typical Périgord villa. The atmosphere changes abruptly in the bucolic gardens full of blazing colour.

Jardin botanique de Vauville (Vauville, France)
At the very end of the Cotentin, against all odds, lies an incredible oasis, bringing together more than 1000 species of plants native to the southern hemisphere. Covering an area of 4.5 hectares, the Vauville Botanical Garden is a journey to the antipodes in the Normandy latitudes. It features a succession of green rooms that are as exotic as they are surprising.

Jardins de Claude Monet (Giverny)
“This is just a matter of pleasure and for pleasure eyes, and also a purpose of motif to paint” wrote Claude Monet about his property in Giverny. In the gardens that he designed with passion, Claude Monet brought to his paroxysm the term picturesque garden. Trees, flowers, wood and metal architecture, garden furniture compose a moving picture constantly evolving thanks to the light and the seasons that the painter had no ceases to immortalize in his works.

Jardin des Cinq Sens (Yvoire) (Haute-Savoie)
The Five Senses Garden, sheltered by the mediaeval Yvoire castle walls, built on the shore of Lake Geneva, was designed in the 1980s in mediaeval style in keeping with the architecture of the castle. All the senses are aroused by the colour, scent, form and taste of the plants. Bird song and the splashing of the central fountain provide background music.

Jardin du château du Rivau (Lémeré)
The gardens of the Château du Rivau are a resolutely contemporary creation, an invitation to enter a fanciful universe, where botanical richness combines with a collection of contemporary art. At the foot of the 15th century castle, 15 gardens invite visitors on a stroll intended to awaken the senses and the imagination. In 1992, Eric and Patricia Laigneau bought the Rivau estate to rehabilitate it. From 1995, Patricia Laigneau focused on garden design. Graphics and colors are the guidelines of the project associated with the fabulous world of fairy tales evoked by oversized contemporary works.

La Bambouseraie en Cèvennes (Occitanie)
The Bambouseraie en Cèvennes was created 160 years ago by Eugène Mazel, a horticultural and natural sciences enthusiast. In 1856 he began to cultivate his first bamboo species, followed by other trees and plants from Japan, China, the Himalayas and North America. The Bambouseraie is now a unique botanical garden in France with a huge variety of bamboos and rare trees.

Le château et les Jardins de la Ballue (Brittany)
The Ballue Palace gardens are one of those rare examples of the Mannerist style in France. They were created in the ‘70s, inspired by Mannerism and Futurism. They are reminiscent of Italian villas with terraced gardens and views over the landscape. From the first floor of the Palace there is a spectacular view over the bay of Mont Saint-Michel.

Le jardin exotique d'Eze (Côte d'Azur)
Le jardin exotique d'Eze, an Italian-style villa on a wild promontory with the Mediterranean as a horizon and the Estérel as a backdrop, such is the legacy of Baroness Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild, lover of the arts and plants. At the foot of the palazzino, a French garden is visible. On the outskirts, more intimate gardens, Spanish, Florentine, lapidary, Japanese, exotic, Provençal invite you to travel.

Le Parc floral d'Apremont-sur-Allier (Loire Valley)
The Apremont-sur-Allier floral park is a synthesis of the so-called ‘French style' architecture («à la française») and the English picturesque. Precision is united with mixed borders and the exotic inspiration of the pagoda-bridge, the symbol of this floral park.

Les jardins du château de Chambord (Loire Valley)
Since 2017, after 14 years of historical research, visitors to Chambord Castle can stroll through the gardens «à la française» which have been restored to an early eighteenth century style. This is an unusual restoration involving the planting of 32.500 plants and 800 trees.

Villa et jardins Ephrussi de Rothschild (Côte d'Azur)
In memory of the roaring twenties, the Baroness Béatrice de Rothschild built a pink palace, with gardens as extravagant as their inventor, on the wild isthmus of Cap Ferrat. The villa gardens are subdivided into eight gardens. The garden «à la française» is the main one around which seven smaller gardens are arranged, including an exotic garden, a Florentine garden and a rose garden with a stunning view over the Mediterranean.