This site is an archive of ChiotsRun.com. For the latest information about Susy and her adventrures, visit the Cultivate Simple site.
Thank you for all your support over the years!

The Sun Garden & Water Garden at Villandry

May 6th, 2019

After apprecaiting all the lettuce seedlings and the greenhouse, we made our way across the top of the property to the water garden and the new sun garden. The water garden is a large pond/lake, complete with a pair of swans. Compared to the rest of the garden, it’s very simple. Only lawn, water and a few box balls in containers. The walkways are gravel, which crunch nicely underfoot (a favorite sound for me). Then we made our way up a small hill to the new sun garden, which is a lot like American botanical gardens. Since this area is dominated by shrubs and perennials, it was fairly dormant when we were there.
















The pollarded lime trees are a dominate feature in this garde and are quite stunning. No doubt they look lovely when they are leafed out, in winter their skeletons create such drama, especially in their shadows.

The Greenhouse Area at Villandry

May 1st, 2019

The night before we actually toured the chateau and gardens of Villandry, we took an evening stroll around town. As we peeked over the walls at Villandry, we spotted their greenhouse and work area. After touring the inside of the chateau, we started across the top of the garden by the woodland and made our way along the wide, tree-lined walkway to the greenhouse/work area of the garden. The greenhouse is small, alongside it are quite a number of cold frames. The greenhouses were full of plants, mostly tender annuals and perennials. The cold frames were filled with lettuces in all colors and boxwood cuttings, both prominent features in the extensive ornamental potager.








Growing on one of the stone walls in the greenhouse area was this lovely clematis, which was blooming, in late March. It looks a lot like the Sweet Autumn Clematis we have in the US, but there wasn’t a tag so I’m not sure what it is exactly.


I don’t have photos of the overall cold frame area or the greenhouse area. While I’m still taking photos when I travel, I’m really trying to be selective, taking fewer photos and soaking in the garden more. It can be difficult to do both at the same time. Ideally, it would nice to visit the garden one day then return the following day for photos.

The Gardens of Villandry – part 1

April 29th, 2019

After touring the chateau at Villandry, we headed out the back to see the gardens from the walkway above. This tree lines walkway provides a nice view of the ornamental salons. These views from above are one of the best ways to appreciate these intricate gardens, the details aren’t as noticeable when you’re walking amoung the gardens. The tulips were just starting to show some color, so the garden wasn’t quite as colorful as it will be the rest of summer, but it was still oustanding.











Gardens like this are so difficult to capture in photos (as are many things). There’s so much detail in every direction that the camera simply can’t do it justice. Stay tuned, I’ll be possting more photos of the other parts of this garden in the next few days.

Villandry Chateau

April 25th, 2019

After an oustanding dinner and a good night of sleep, we were up the next morning to tour the Chateau and gardens of Villandry. Originally I wasn’t going to tour the chateau, but the tickets included with our hotel package included the tour of the interior. I’m certainly glad that it did, the views of the garden through the windows and from the top of the tower were outstanding, well worth the extra few Euros to go inside.


















Check back tomorrow and next week for more photos of this lovely garden. We knew we wanted to visit this garden when we first planned our trip, but were debating if it was worth 2 hour drive from Paris. After visiting, we decided it was well worth it and we will definitely do it again if we are ever in France in the future.

The Town of Villandry

April 23rd, 2019

Back to our regularly scheduled posts from our trip to France earlier in the month. After we left Versailles, we drove to Villandry. After much on-line seraching, I had booked a room at Le Haut Des Lys that came with tickets to the Chateau of Villandry (more photos of the garden tomorrow). It ended up being the perfect choice. The room was fantastic, the hotel quiet, and there were lovely gardens. Since we arrived in mid afternoon, we walked around the garden after we got settled in our room.










After walking around the garden, we walked into town (the hotel was only a block away from town) where we peeked over the walls of the chateau to see the gardens.





After enjoying a lovely sunset, we headed down to L’Etape Gourmande for dinner and enjoyed a wonderful meal, complete with foie gras. We were lucky that our hotel got us a reservation for that evening as we had wanted to eat there but had heard reservations needed to be made months in advance (probably being there before the busy season helped).

How do you go about finding hotels and restaurants when you are traveling?

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

Admin