Visit to rose gardens in the Loire Valley

This tour is now sold out.
If you would like your name to be added to the waiting list
please email Mary Hember on mary@hember.net

The tour will now start in London and travel to and from France by Eurostar. Departure on Monday morning at 09.30 from St Pancras.

We plan to take you to some beautiful gardens created by people with a passion for old roses. The itinerary will include the following gardens.

• Le Chateau du Rivau is situated in the heart of the Regional Nature Reserve of the Loire Valley and is a World Heritage Site.The owner, Patricia Laigneau, is a great lover of roses and has assembled a very large collection of old roses, both once and repeat flowering, including some which are seldom seen, also many species and rugosa roses. The rest of the gardens in the 12 acres have been recreated from documents in the archives of Le Rivau, which was made famous by Rabelais. Patricia Laigneau would be happy to meet us and show us round. She is particularly fond of the most fragrant roses and has a garden dedicated to them.
• Le Chateau du Lude – La Comtesse de Nicolaÿ, also a lover of old roses, has created a rose garden near the chateau and overlooking the peaceful setting alongside the river. At the time we propose this visit there will be a Gardeners’ Weekend event at the chateau with other people displaying their plants and products to add to the interest.
• Manoir de Possoniėre This is the birthplace of Pierre de Ronsard, 16th-century poet, and is kept by the Département as a memorial to him. There is a large collection of old roses and species set in island beds and well labelled. The rest of the garden is very pleasant. The church in the village, which dates from the 13th century, was modified by Louis de Ronsard, Pierre’s father, in the 16th century and is decorated with many shields bearing the Ronsard coat of arms. He also decorated the manor with sculptures which are one of the first manifestations of the influence of the Italian Renaissance in France.
• Jardin du Plessis Sasnières This is a garden different from any of the gardens one normally encounters in France. Rosamée Henrion is an admirer of English gardens and has created a garden in the English style, in tune with the landscape. It has been developed gradually since it was inherited in 1960. The variety and range of plants is impressive, as are the plant combinations and the settings created for them. It is indeed an enchanting garden to visit.
• Les Jardins de Roquelin A beautiful, informal garden planted with a mix of trees, shrubs, perennials and roses with the emphasis very much on the latter. There are 450 roses in total made up of a wonderful mix of historic roses, modern roses and many climbers and ramblers. Many of the ramblers come from chance seedlings found in the garden and look superb growing up into the trees. There is also a superb curvilinear greenhouse rescued by the owner Stéphane Chassine who used to work for André Eve.

 Other possibilities are the villages of roses, Chedigny, an enchanting village full of roses, as well as Chateau de Valmer and Le Javeliere, the latter with the national collection of species roses.

The all-inclusive price for the four-night stay is £850 per person sharing a room and £950 per person for single occupation.

This tour is now sold out, but if you would like your name to be added to the waiting list please email Mary Hember on mary@hember.net