Les Jardins de Cadiot; an attractive Dordogne garden

Visit Les Jardins de Cadiot

The Jardins de Cadiot are situated near to Vitrac in the Dordogne department of South West France. There are a few gardens in this part of France and the Jardins de Cadiot is one of our favourites.

Explore the Jardins de Cadiot

This is a lovely garden made up of about ten individual gardens of different styles and covers ten hectares. The garden was created in the 1980s and so has a pleasant maturity. The ten gardens include a potager and a labyrinth. There are also about 1500 varieties of plants and so there is always something in flower.

Of the ten gardens my favourites are the English garden (le jardin Anglais), the Italian style garden (le jardin toscan) and the patios. The English garden has big wide border and lots of perennials and bulbs and the border has a hot colour scheme with lots of yellows and oranges. It features lots of day lillies and crocosmia and has a French twist with the introfuction of lots of topiaries.

In the Italian-style garden are fabulous huge pots of Agapanthus, one of my favourite flowers, as well as lots of box trimmed into cones and providing edges to the garden. There is also a rose garden, peony garden and a woodland area which has some beautiful palms amongst the more typical woodland trees.

The large border of heleniums in a lovely vibrant orange is wonderful and inspired me to go home and plant as many as possible of this lovely plant in my own garden. The Jardins of Cadiot have big collections of ancient roses, peonies, dahlias, grasses, sages, hemerocallis and hydrangeas as well as Japanese acers.

The peony garden has 100 different varieties and is glorious to visit in May.

The owners reflect a strong artistic side both in their planting and in the introduction of sculptures in the garden. In the woodland garden there is a display of contemporary sculptures by artists from Zimbabwe. There is also a labyrinth of clipped hornbeam with a golden Gleditsia at the centre. The labyrinth is a favourite with children.

When you have finished admiring the garden there is a tea shop with home made cakes and drinks made from flowers from the garden. The tea shop is open in the afternoon only. When I visited I tried a home-made ginger cordial and it was absolutely delicious. You can sit in one of the beautiful patio areas to enjoy your drinks and cakes.

The garden is maintained without using chemicals and plants are chosen to attract insects as well as to look attractive.