Jardins du château d'Ainay-le-Vieil

A fortified castle complete with moat, guardroom and wall-walk… straight from the Middle Ages, inhabited by the same family since 1467.
A walk in the park will enchant your senses with the many fragrances of the rose garden holding old roses named after famous people, followed by the discovery of the Jardins des Chartreuses with perennials, sculpted fruit trees, scrolling patterns, a profusion of flowers and the foliage of age-old trees…!The Roseraie with its collection of fragrant old roses, all labelled, will give you an opportunity to find out or to rediscover the declension of Rosa in our gardens. Through its avenues lined with hornbeam and punctuated with pots of clipped yew, the Jardin de l’Île, a 1-hectare square surrounded by water, leads you to the overhanging old “Chartreuses”. There you will enter the Jardin bouquetier, for cut flowers, with perennial borders. Moving from one room to the next under its poetic arcades will let you discover the “Verger sculpté”, a sculpted orchard with shaped fruit trees, the “Jardin de Méditation”” with a yew house, the “Cloître des Simples” with medicinal herbs and finally the “Jardin Blanc” with its intricate parterres de broderie.