Amiens, the capital of Picardy, has the best air quality of any town in France with a population of over 100,000, according to an investigation by the French popular science magazine, “Ça m’intéresse”. Leave Paris to spend a weekend in this regional capital. A hour and a half in the car, 70 minutes by train, south Picardy is the ideal destination for nature lovers.
The people of Picardy are nature lovers too - gardening is something the locals love. And our gardeners also love swapping advice and tips with visitors – seventy of Picardy’s parks and gardens are open to the public nowadays.
As regards gardens in Picardy, some extraordinary creations can be found, which will not leave the well-informed garden-lover unmoved. Gardens on which their creators had to work relentlessly to lay them out and to acclimatise rare species. So, near to Paris, a stone’s throw from Chantilly chateau, within the former estate of the Condé princes, the Princes’ kitchen garden (Potager des Princes) is to be found, home to a living museum of the world’s gardens – an orchard, a fig garden, a children’s kitchen garden, a tropical garden, another garden dedicated to bonsais and a Japanese garden.
Even closer to Paris, the Ermenonville park, laid out by the marquis of Girardin from 1765, is a tribute to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. A great admirer of the philosopher, he laid out the estate and created a romantic English-style park, taking his inspiration from Rousseau’s view of nature.
The Amiens Hortillonnages consists of 300 hectares of floating gardens spread out in the heart of the town, intersected by 55 kilometres of small canals. This site can only be seen by boat, or on foot, using the towpaths.
A bonus when visiting a garden is to meet the gardener. There are many in Picardy who love to exchange garden-lovers’ advice and tips with visitors. “Spending twelve hours in my garden and being the only one to benefit makes no sense,” says Bruno Goisque at the Digeon garden in the Somme, one of 14 outstanding gardens in Picardy.
In the southern Oise and Valois, the influence of the royal court combined with the closeness of the capital gave rise to some magnificent creations, such as the Chantilly chateau Park, a superb example of a classical garden. The search for diversity is one of the great strengths of Picardy’s gardens. By way of example, mention can be made of the Viels-Maisons gardens in Aisne, forming a harmonious sequence of different areas. Firstly, the wild garden, which goes down to the stream. Then there is the romantic garden and the English-style garden. Further yet is the hidden garden, a fantasy sprung from the fertile imagination of the property’s owner. It illustrates La Fontaine’s fable, The gardener and his master. Further up is the Priest’s garden in which seven elements must be found. Fruit and vegetables, flowers for the church, medicinal plants, grapes for the communion wine, boxwood as a symbol of eternity, and water for both the ground and the birds. And lastly, a statue of the Virgin Mary.
Finally, it is not possible to talk about Picardy gardens without mentioning roses and rose gardens. In Gerberoy, one of France’s prettiest villages, near Beauvais, the rose is queen of the flowers. Found everywhere in the narrow, flower-bedecked streets, the rose also spreads its colour and subtle beauty through the rose gardens at Rambures in the Somme, Chaalis in the Oise and Orgeval in Aisne. As for the famous Picardy rose, star of a poem-turned-song, “…Do you remember, it was about Picardy and the roses that can be found down there” in the words of Eddy Marnay, it has recently become an incarnate flower, solemnly created and baptised in the gardens of Valloires abbey on the Picardy coast.
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