Un Jardin Remarquable - Le grand Launay

On Friday (a bank holiday here in France) we visited a local garden - Le Grand Launay, only 20 minutes up the road, and one we had not heard of before. It was included in a series of gardens open for charity this weekend, which is how we got to hear about it. it is classified as un jardin remarquable and with good reason.
The first bit is the beautiful archway into a large lawned courtyard. The lawn is immaculate, without a weed to its name, and carefully mown in stripes. The owner, while taking our 2 euros, explained that is was une pelouse anglaise and that he had bought an English cylinder mower to get the correct effect.This is one huge courtyard! All round the edges are mainly foliage plants, plus some beds edged in low wavy box hedges and one massive tree as you can see in the picture above. Pretty breathtaking start. I could live in that courtyard...However, after a slow circuit of the courtyard we left it and came upon the back lawn. The beds surrounding the lawn are edged in undulating box hedging, with cloud-pruned trees behind. At one end (left in the photo below) there is a low mass of beech 'hedge' the same level as the terrace above & behind it. The house from this angle is pretty amazing too! Carrying on round this back lawn brings you out to the most amazing little orchard I have ever seen - there are box 'serpents' trained up each of the trees! The effect is weird in the extreme, and I think is designed as a witty reference to the book of Genesis.Further on is a sunken area with a 'source', the floor of which is paved with blocks to allow the water to trickle through in rills. There are lots of lovely candelabra primulas here.
The rills finally join together and empty out into a beautiful pond, surrounded by foliage plants and trees. This pond is the source of water for the next feature - a cascade within a gravel garden.This bit of the garden still looks very new and a bit contrived, but will probably mature and fit in a bit better eventually. The slope is surrounded by trees with mown paths through them, which are lovely to stroll round, looking at the sunshine through the new leaves.Finally we came out behind the first building, where there is a small potager and herb garden.
This is surrounded by espaliered apple trees, within box hedges with wild strawberries below them. Within these is a woven willow fedge which outlines the potager and jardin des simples, or herb garden, with a small pond in the centre - all just immaculate.We came away with our jaws hanging open and a determination to get planting lots more hedging in our own plot. I love the idea of undulating hedges, carefully trimmed but following their own varying contours. Of course we have neither the setting, the means nor the full time gardener to copy this place, but we have come away with loads of ideas, and a garden that is close enough to visit regularly throughout the year.
Click on the title of this post to go to the site: http://www.parcsetjardins.fr/bretagne/cotes_d_armor/le_grand_launay-858.html