COURSON FLOWER SHOW AND ILE DE FRANCE GARDENS
The internationally famous flower show at the Château de Courson attracts nurserymen, plant specialists, botanists, artists and craftsmen from all over Europe - and their wares are for sale. Our Tour also visits a private Château whose Persian garden, potager and orangerie are all linked by a mysterious ancient canal, and the contemporary André Citröen Parc in Paris.

ChÂteau de Courances.
Home of the de Ganay family,this is a French Renaissance water garden with five centuries of garden history layer upon layer. In the early 20th Century the different styles around the Château were brought together by linking all the water features, pools, cascades, canals, river and moat. The current Marquis de Ganay styles around the Château garden, begun in the 1930's and home to collections of acer, bamboo and liquidambar. Fourteen springs weave through the mysterious forest behind the formal avenues to fill the long canals. This historic garden lovingly cared for and is one of the most romantic Château gardens today.

Jardin d'Anne-MariE, Lardy
Anne-Marie and Yvon Grivaz fell in love with this beautiful place beside the river more than 30 years ago and have made a romantic French style cottage garden. Mellow gravel paths wind through lawns and borders which are a glorious mix of shrubs and perennials in soft colours. Yvon has built bridges and terraces, summerhouses and pergolas to support the roses which Anne-Marie adores. In 1999 Dutch bulb-growers chose this garden as a shop window and planted more than 8,000 bulbs, many of which will be flowering during our visit. In 2007 they were awarded the prestigious Prix du Jardinière d'Ile-de-France.

ChÂteau De Saint-Jean de Beauregard.
This Château, built in 1628, and its park, clearly reflect the current fascination of the owners, the Viscount and Vicountess de Curel, with their history. The remarkable 5-acre potager was abandoned until 1984 when the Curel's replanted it to the original design to include perennials, bulbs, older varieties of vegetables and aromatic and medicinal plants. The grey-pink brick walls are covered in roses, clematis, fan-trained fruit trees and ancient espalier pears. Deep shrub rose borders are separated by box buttresses.

THE MUSÉE DU QUAI BRANLY
The Musée du Quai Branly boasts one of the newest of museum buildings - designed in 2006 by architect Jean Nouvel. Inspirationally they also commissioned two of France's premier garden designers. Giles Clément created the garden around and even beneath the museum buildings - pathways wind over small hills and next to ponds where grasses and perennials and over a hundred trees including oaks, maples, magnolias and cherry trees flourish. Patrick Blanc, botanist, scientist and inventor converted the walls bordering the Seine into one of his living vertical gardens, a tapestry rich in texture and tones of green, punctuated by flowers.