French Gardens

Gardens in France > > Chateau de Chenonceau Gardens

The Chateau de Chenonceau gardens are made up of a number of individual gardens, the main two being those of Catherine de Medicis and Diane de Poitiers. There is also a maize, a green garden and a vegetable garden to see.

Chateau de Chenonceau was given to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, by Henry II but when he died his wife Catherine de Medici forced her out. Diane's garden was created on the right hand side of the castle and when she took over the castle Catherine created her garden on the left hand side!

Diane's garden is a French formal garden based on eight grass triangles. In the centre of the garden is an ornamental fountain. The flower beds are planted twice a year - a spring planting with bulbs, violas and daisies, and a summer planting with petunias, dahlias, tobacco and verveine. Roses and 3000m of santolina form a part of the permanent structure of the garden.

Catherine's garden features an avenue of orange trees, climbing rose trees and flower borders on the edge of the moat.

The green garden is a collection of trees and was designed by Bernard Palissy, a famous French potter.

The vegetable garden is now an impressive cutting garden producing flowers for decorating the castle and for the floral workshopsthat you can take at Chenonceau. It is huge - 10,000 square meteres. Actually its worth visiting the chateau just to see these flower displays - they are magnificent. Every room has  a different display and the display is renewed twice a week

Chateau de Chenonceau Garden Guide

The Chateau de Chenonceau is about 12km south-east of Amboise in the Indre et Loire department of the Loire Valley.

Chateau de Chenonceau

37150 Chenonceaux

tel: 02 47 23 90 07

The castle is open every day from 9.30am to 17.00 pm and up to 20.00pm in the summer.