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To know a country in a more intimate way is to know what the climate nurtures when given the chance to do so. Whether we plan our trip to ensure we can visit a particular garden or simply seek out a visit to any garden for connection with Mother Nature while on our travels, when we do so, we step into a world of discovery, awe, and an invitation to ground ourselves.
If we are gardeners at home, we may also find inspiration, new ideas and ways of planning and planting our garden. But even if we are not a gardener, a garden visit while traveling gifts us with much to savor, delight in and appreciate.
In today’s post I have gathered up 18 different gardens worth visiting around France, all outside and beyond Paris (one is in the same region as Paris, but still outside of the city). Most definitely, there are many more, and as you will notice, many of the gardens below are either located in the heart of France (the Loire Valley) or in the northern parts of France. Some are also part of the grounds of a chateau, and many of these paired destinations offer dining, overnight accommodations, and even wine tastings. But most are gardens all on their own, awaiting your visit just to see them in their magnificent beauty and design.
Having visited two of the gardens on the list shared below (the photo above was captured at Villandry), both of which I have detailed posts and video (one newly posted today), with each visit I continue to want to explore further. Both having the opportunity to learn more about France’s history, but what captivates my interest are the plants, care, and potential of what a garden can be when we work with Mother Nature.
Organized by the region of France they are found, this way, based on where you might be already planning to travel, you can see if there is a garden in the area that you might want to visit. Or, plan your trip around seeing a particular garden or two!
~Note: to view the gardens and learn about their history, click through the link displaying their name.
Brittany/Bretagne
1. Parc Botanique de Haute Bretagne
This treasure of a garden is tucked away between the farmlands of Normandy and Brittany. I had the opportunity to visit last year, and had a wonderful, solo visit, which made it all the more special as I really did feel as though the garden was my very own for those couple of hours I wandered about. View my detailed post capturing photos from my visit in March 2025.
Open from the first of March through mid-November, dogs are welcome on a leash. Hours vary based on the month.
A garden inspired by both English and Italian-style plantings and design, it is described as both a botanical wonderland and romantic oasis. Comprised of multiple rooms and nestled along the River Jaudi in northern Brittany, it is open to the public from the end of March to the end of September, and dogs on a leash are welcome.
~Watch the video below to view the garden:
If you are looking for a garden that is exotic, full of unexpected (think-Mediterranean and fair-climate sort of plants), then this is the garden for you. The garden was founded in 1994, young in comparison to many other gardens, but in the first 20 years alone, it amassed more than 20,000 plants with more than 2450 varieties. Open from mid-April to the end of August, it is located in north Brittany, along the English Channel near Lannion.
4. Château de la Ballue et Jardins
Located near Mont St. Michel and Saint-Malo, discover gardens that date back to their original design in the 1620s. While near Normandy, this chateau and its gardens are quintessential Brittany, with the wind-swept blue skies and topiaries brilliant in their greenery and strong structures. The gardens open in mid-March and run through mid-November. The design is described as Italian Baroque, with its enchanting regal rooms and dreamy wisteria and climbing roses.
Normandy
The view from the gardens of Étretat have been forever immortalized by Claude Monet in his many painting capturing the Cliffs of Étretat. The Étretat Gardens are a wonderful maze of topiaries situated on the hills and cliffs themselves overlooking the English Channel. The gardens are open from early March to early November, and buying your ticket in advance is advised.
Situated just outside Bayeux, discover a multitude of themed gardens organized into rooms, as well as terraced gardens displaying yew topiary and beech hedges, along with various ornamental grasses and daylilies.
7. Le Jardin de Champ de Bataille
Fit for royalty, the gardens at Château Champ de Bataille will make you feel as though you are visiting Versailles.
8. Château et Jardins de Canon
Found in the Calvados region of Normandy and built in the 18th century, its gardens showcase rare historic plants along with an array of ‘rooms’, walled in with neatly trimmed topiary hedges. With a water garden and a rosarie with more than 120 varietals of roses, you will also find oodles of statues situated throughout and trees. The many plane trees create a wooded area that was planted in 1793 and is hailed for the trees’ remarkable height of their shafts and the “elephant’s foot” flared base of some of them.
Île de France
Opening in 2015 and located just south of Paris, this garden is found in the Gâtinais region. The gardens are situated within a 17th-century estate consisting of six-hectares. Discover roses of all types (climbing, shrub, and ground-cover varietals). Mixed borders, as seen below, are full of herbaceous perennials and ornamental grasses. They also have a kitchen garden full of heirloom vegetables. With successional blooms that offer beauty from spring all the way through autumn, there is much inspired derived from the classic English garden.
The garden is open from the middle of May to the middle of July, closed until September 1st, when they reopen and can be visited through until the end of November.
Loire Valley
Located in what is often referred to as the Garden of France, the Loire Valley is where you will find Rivau Jardin. Made up of 15 different gardens, situated over six hectares, visitors will discover different flowers blooming throughout the gardening season. From their potager, Rapunzel’s garden, the Enchanted Forest, Tom Thumb’s garden, Fairy’s Way and Alice’s Maze, along with many more garden rooms (see them all here), children and adults will enjoy their visit.
Centre-Val de Loire
11. Le Jardin de Saint-Jean de Beauregard
Located just 30 minutes south of Paris, the garden was originally designed in the French style and created in the 18th century. In the 19th century, a part of the garden was transformed into the English style. Also on the grounds is a kitchen garden, in the traditional style of the 17th-century vegetable gardens that is still in use today.
Originally the home of the Steward to Catherine de ‘ Medici, Queen Catherine de’ Medici was passionate about her garden that derived its inspiration from the Italian-style. With paths and views beautifully framing the chateau, wherever you wander, the vistas were considered and your breath was meant to be taken. There is also a hedged maze made up of 2,000 yew hedges, an extensive flower garden, all originally designed by Diane de Poitiers during the time of the Renaissance.
I have a special fondness for the gardens at Villandry, as it was the first garden in France I visited outside of Paris, and I came upon it completely by serendipity. Read my detailed post here, and if you have a chance to visit, I highly recommend it. The Renaissance-style garden is organized into various rooms, all seen from the heightened vantage point of the chateau’s cobbled entrance (seen in the photo below). Throughout the gardening season, the section that contains the potager will change as different produce is harvested. Granted, most of it is for display, but it is consumed as well. I took a video tour of my visit as well, which you will find in my post.
French Riviera
14. Château de Valmer Potager and Vineyard
The vegetable garden at this 15th-century chateau, while with only one hectare of land, is full of subdivided parcels. There are fruit trees as well: peach trees, nectarines, apricots, fig trees, nashis, apple trees, and pears. The small fruit square offers currants, blackcurrants, blackcurrants, gooseberries, gooseberries, raspberries. And while most people visit for the vineyard, the garden is most definitely worth checking out as well.
Provence
Found in Cucuron, in the Luberon part of Provence, this garden was awarded the title of ‘A Remarkable Garden’ by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. Working with the heat of Provence, they also demonstrate in their two named gardens, the Pink and then the Blue Garden, how to dance with nature, as you will find a sun-loving, more drought-tolerant approach, and in the Blue Garden there are sculpted hedges surrounded by silvery blue Russian sage, all tended to organically.
16. Les Jardins de Abbaye Saint-André
Discover an Italian- and Provencal-style garden situated on two hectares of land. Complete with ponds and trellised paths draped with growing vines to provide shaded paths, there are olive trees and other Mediterranean varietals that thrive in the heat and can survive the chill of winter.
Hauts-de-France
With thirty different garden rooms situated on four hectares, Les Jardins des Séricourt was created in 1980 by Yves Gosse de Gorre. With a passion for discovering new plants paired alongside those happily growing in the region, his garden has now been passed on to fellow lovers of his approach to introducing new ideas while honoring the traditional favorites of visitors. As you plan your visit, know that they have a salon de thè, so a full day can be enjoyed while touring the garden.
From the Cathedral of roses where a long avenue covered with a trelised arch has climbing roses growing up and over those who walk underneath, to the geometric garden and even the war garden which pays homage with its planting of trees to symbolize the lives lost. And probably the most notable and what most may remember Séricourt garden for is the Mask garden where various visages in topiary surround the garden room. Explore all the rooms here.
Drawing inspiration from the English garden style, you will find full, verdant borders, more than 450 rose varietals – a mixing of old roses and David Austen roses, as well as hydrangeas, all displayed throughout the winding paths of varying foliage throughout the garden. The garden is open from the 1st of May to the 20th of August.
Explore all of the Posts shared during this year’s French Week
Oh my word, that is certainly a cabbage of fabulousness! Shannon, all of these gardens are so enchanting, viewing them instantly made my shoulders drop and nudged a smile to appear. My Instagram feed thanks you, and so do I. xx
Thank you for sharing, Shannon. Strolling aimlessly through a beautiful garden (and pretending it’s your garden) is one of life’s little pleasures!