Villandry

Its rather wet and miserable in London at the moment...and although the desire to get outside and do things is building, the closest I have got to gardening was sitting in the summerhouse with a hot cup of tea making a mental to-do list.

However I am catching up on tv and rather enjoying Monty Dons new French Gardens program... I love France and have been reminiscing about our trip there in 2011 where we just drove through the Loire Valley having long lunches with kir vin blanc in outside cafes in panoramic medieval villages wandering round chateau and admiring the gardens....note to self must buy lottery ticket, then buy run down old French chateau

Villandry which Monty visited (clearly he must have read my blog?) was one of our favourites and as I was stuck inside I thought it would be rather apt to dig out some photos to share. It is a really remarkable place as the scale is breathtaking...Montys focus was on the potager which is fabulous, and it was interesting, but a bit disappointing, to see that they don't actually use the produce/it isn't a productive garden. However it is breathtaking....and what you don't notice is also that behind all the formal pomp is a more modern garden which was equally as inspiring and I have lots of photos of plant labels as I met things such as Helianthus salicifolius and Aeseculus parvifolia for the first time.