In the Garden of Azay-le-Ferron

The Gardens at Azay-le-Ferron are a wonderful mix of formal, forest and meadow.  The rose collection is arranged by the date the rose arrived in France; from the 1100's to present day.  The meadow is sowed with native grasses, which had been mowed and bailed.  Perhaps to sell to help pay the bills?  The gardeners do not us chemical pesticides or herbicides; a fact of which they are very proud.

Frog floating in one of the pools in the garden.

When we first spotted this spider, it looked like one of the green buds on the rose, until he moved.

Beds of flowers with grass walkways between.

Beautiful spikes of pink.

Gnarly bark of a very old Catalpa tree.

The back portion of the garden is given over to trees around the edge, with a meadow in the middle.

The collection of roses ranged from very old varieties, such as this one which came back from the Crusades.

These tiny but prolific, roses had the most wonderful fragrance.  I wish this were a scratch and sniff blog so you could smell them.

Walking in the shade of the plane trees.