Let’s Take a Stroll in the Arboretum…

A watchful stroll in the Herboretum park reveals the structure its designers have wanted to give it, at the time of its creation. The park is indeed “dated” by trees which were fashionable a little over a century ago. Ash trees and Sycamore Maples dominate the park with their abundant foliage. A few tall Plane trees bring a lighter touch to the garden. Elm trees, Alders, and Poplars grow next to the Mauves river and reflect their shimmering colours in the little river which runs through the park. The numerous Yews, known for their slow growth, have reached a respectable height, reflecting their old age.

Arboretum All this indigenous flora is accompanied by more exotic essences. Some isolated specimens stand out, such as a tall and large Atlas Cedar, a Himalaya Cedar, rarer and unfortunately decapitated by climatic variations, a beautiful semper virens Sequoia, cousin to the huge Californian coastal "Redwoods", a Bald Cypress (Taxodium distychum), surviving with its feet in the water thanks to its pneumatophores, and even a spectacular Japanese Sophora, not far from the house.

More discreetly, other species, which would love to be placed in the spotlight, are currently overwhelmed by a nursery of Maples which seem to settle naturally, along with Ivy and Traveller’s Joy. We thus found a big Locust tree with compound leaves, slightly similar to those of Rowanberries or Black Locusts, with a trunk covered in strong thorns, several Eastern Red Cedars, with tiny, blueish, very aromatic fruit, Californian Incense Cedars with crevassed bark, native from Western USA, and even Weymouth Pine (Pinus strobus) with its thin, elegant, Pine needles, it too native from North America.

The arboretum part of the Herboretum estate already provides an acknowledged botanical interest which will be enhanced with other unique essences. The weeping Katsura tree (also known as Ghost tree or Handkerchief tree), is thus named because of the large white bracts at the base of the flowers, the Katsura tree with its leaves that give off a burnt toffee or allspice bread-like smell in the fall, and of course the inevitable Ginkgo biloba with its golden leaves, whose absence is noticeable.