Gardens to explore on your holidays: Île-de-France

2008-06-30

By Catherine Delvaux et Emmanuelle Saporta

Royal kitchen garden and romantic landscaped park: take a stroll in the footsteps of the Sun King and stock up on ideas to use in your own garden, from the specialists congregating at Courson.

The King’s Kitchen Garden at Versailles (78)

© ENSP/Leroux

Laid out in the XVIIth century, under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie, an expert in fruit and vegetable gardens, the King’s Kitchen Garden – Potager du Roi – is located a stone’s throw from the Château de Versailles. Created in the time of Louis XIV to serve an increasingly large court, this kitchen garden was to provide the fruit and vegetables intended for the royal tables. Any surplus production was distributed to the people of Versailles.

The original plan has remained more or less the same: a large square cut up into 16 further “squares” of vegetables, set out around a large ornamental lake and surrounded by trimmed-down trees. Behind the walls surrounding the large square, 29 enclosed gardens contain fruit trees growing freely or espalier-trained and crops of fruit and vegetables.

In this place with a very rich past, one discovers the magnificent collections of over 200 varieties of apples and pears, as well as fig, apricot and peach trees and more forgotten species such as actinidias (kiwis)… The kitchen garden is overlooked by a terrace that enabled the king and his guests to take in all the crops at a glance.

Practical information

Le Potager du Roi

ENSP

10 rue du Maréchal Joffre

78000 Versailles.

Tel: +33 (0)1 39 24 62 62

www.potager-du-roi.fr

Opening times

Open every day except Monday, from 10am to 6pm.

Prices

Adults: €4.50 during the week, €6.50 at weekends and on public holidays.

Children from 12 to 18: €3

Under-11s: free

You can buy the fruit and vegetables that are produced here. Collection of books on the garden and landscaping, jams and sweetmeats made using fruit from the garden, compotes, homemade fruit juices, etc.

Grounds of the Château de Courson (91)

©Pep Fleurs du Sud

A magnificent example of a romantic landscaped park, stretching out over nearly 40 hectares. Here you will find a great variety of numerous species (oak, maple, hackberry, copper beech…) and beds composed notably of heath plants that bear witness to the successive owners’ passion for botany.

In summer, a stroll beside the pond on the estate is a real pleasure. It is also very pleasant to discover the roses and hydrangeas, which are superb at this time of year. Courson is also renowned for its “Journées des Plantes” (Plant Days), which take place twice a year, in May and October. This event brings together some 250 exhibitors, experts in plants and landscaping. A must!