Le Jardin Anglais in Dinan, Brittany
We recently took a family holiday to Ireland taking the ferry from Roscoff to Cork (returning Rosslare to Cherbourg). Roscoff is 3½hrs from Lenault so with an evening departure we thought we'd leave early and stop somewhere en route for lunch. Dinan is 1¾ hours away and a quick search online revealed it to be a lovely looking town. I will blog more about the town shortly but today I want to focus on the main garden and plants throughout the town.
As with all French towns Dinan has some lovely florists and as our visit was in October their displays had a distinctly autumnal feel to them.
However summer was still hanging on in these geraniums gracing a rather magnificent front door.
Elsewhere I found Runner Beans climbing up a drain pipe. Generally speaking, the French consider Runner Beans to be a decorative plant and in fact they were originally first grown in the UK for their flowers. In France, if you want to buy seeds you will still often need to look in the flower section at the garden centre.
Walking down one street my eye was drawn to some slate signs and on closer inspection I saw they were plant labels. I do like to know the names of plants so this was a lovely addition to Dinan's floral displays. We were a little late in the season to see many in bloom although this hydrangea had some faded blooms and very healthy looking leaves for October.
Le Jardin Anglais
At the top of the town, adjacent to the Basilique Ste-Sauveur on rue Victor Basch and overlooking the old town in the Rance Valley you will find Le Jardin Anglais. It was created from 1853 and is dedicated to the many English who moved to Dinan in the 19th century and were known as The English Colony. The gardens have various flower beds as well as areas of lawn and gravelled paths as is more typical of English gardens. In the warm October sunshine plenty of people were enjoying the garden, the many flowers still in bloom and the views over the old town from the rampart walls.
The garden also contains a large Maidenhair tree - Ginkgoe biloba - classified as one of France's "Arbres remarquables". Maidenhair trees were around at the time of the dinosaurs and fossil evidence shows that this particular species was also thriving at least 270 million years ago making it the oldest living tree species on earth. It is the large tree to the left in this photo.
Have you visited Dinan or have you seen any other of France's "Remarkable Trees"?
Linking up with Annie Spratt and her wonderful How Does Your Garden Grow linky and:
