15. Le verger idéal

As it does every year, the Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire has created its own garden, bringing together all the qualities of the ideal garden: a place of rest and rejuvenation and an edible garden all in one. In the shade of hornbeams and corkscrew hazels, a fig tree flourishes in its very heart, on an islet surrounded by playful wooden cubes where visitors can sit and dream the day away. The fig tree is unique in that it produces fruit on the current year’s shoots as well as on those from the previous year. It can therefore produce several generations of flowers and fruit in a single year and bear ripe figs and green figs at the same time, celebrating the life cycle twice over. At its feet, white yarrow (also known as milfoil) mixes with the azure spheres of southern globethistles and a wide variety of perennials, including pink wood sorrel (which is edible) and diaphanous Molinia, a pale green species of grass. Lupins and Alpine columbines round off the garden’s palette of plant life, along with purple coneflowers.