Château de Villandry gardens

Villandry is fifteen kilometres west of Tours and the house is almost beside the point. Joachim Carvallo rebuilt the Renaissance gardens from scratch in the early twentieth century, and the result is six terraced levels: a water garden with a mirror pool at the top, an ornamental garden of clipped box laid out as hearts and fans, a sun garden, a maze, a herb garden — and below them all the potager, a chessboard of nine squares planted with coloured vegetables between low box hedges.

The kitchen garden is the frame nobody has seen before. From the terrace above it reads as pure geometry and colour — cabbage purple against leek blue-green against gravel — and from inside it the box hedges make corridors to place people in. The upper terrace gives the elevated view; the water garden gives reflections and a calm surface.

Season is decisive: the potager is planted twice a year and is at its fullest from June through October. In winter it is bare geometry, striking but very different. Overcast light suits the colour better than hard sun, which blows out the gravel paths.

Villandry is ticketed and privately run, with its own conditions for professional photography, tripods and drones, and the gardens are far quieter in the first hour after opening. Check the current rules before promising a shoot inside, and allow twenty to twenty-five minutes' drive from Tours.