Wherever I travel at home and abroad I prioritise visiting the local botanic gardens. In September 2016 I was fortunate to visit the south coast of France and stay in the old city of Montpellier a few minutes’ walk from the Jardin des Plantes.

It is France’s oldest botanic garden, established in 1593 under the leadership of Pierre Richer de Belleval, professor of botany and anatomy at the University of Montpellier (established 1289). It is the second oldest in the world, inspired by the Orto Botanico di Padova, the very first university botanical garden established in 1545 in Padua, Italy, and in turn used as a model for the botanic garden in Paris which was established in 1626. The garden in Montpellier, as in Padua, was established and maintained by the Faculty of Medicine to provide resources for students studying plants used in traditional medicine and this led to the development of the scientific disciplines of botany, medicine and pharmacy.

Largely destroyed in 1622 during the siege of Montpellier, the garden was restored in 1629 and underwent further remodelling and expansion in the 19th century; the orangerie was completed in 1804, the arboretum landscaped in 1810 and the English garden with a Nelumbo pond and greenhouse dates from 1859.

On entering the 4.5 hectare garden Margaret Beard and I were disappointed to find that around half of it, including the orangerie, was fenced off with signs indicating that these areas were awaiting renovation. We were there at the end of a long, hot and very dry summer and the plants were in need of rain, better labelling and more loving care. However, as we wandered along the paths, past architectural ruins and through shaded avenues of venerable trees the garden began to weave its magic and it was rewarding to discover many new and some familiar Mediterranean climate plants. It was very clear that this important historic garden is desperately under resourced although there were a few sections of the garden which had been recently renewed.

The oldest tree in the garden is a Phillyrea latifolia in the family Oleacea, hence its common name of green olive tree. This specimen is over 400 years old and the deep fissures in its trunk have been used for centuries by visitors to deposit secrets, prayers and love letters. There is also a mature male Ginkgo biloba, planted from a cutting in 1795, and grafted with female branches in 1830 which later produced the first ever seeds in France.

The arboretum contains many other fine old trees including representatives of the genera acer, celtis, cupressus, maclura, quercus, and zelkova.

Twenty five of “les beaux arbres” in the garden were identified with information boards describing their characteristics and culture which we were able to roughly translate, greatly enhancing our appreciation of these ‘beautiful trees’. Montpellier has a climate and topography very similar to that of Adelaide, as noted by Sir Samuel Davenport, (founder of the olive oil industry in South Australia and member of the board of the Adelaide Botanic Garden) in his letters home during the 1840s. It is interesting to compare this ancient garden and its collections with our own new Garden of Health in the Adelaide Botanic Garden.

Oasis Park, on the island of Fuerteventura, comprises a botanical garden with educational exhibitions, a zoological park with small and large animals, birds and reptiles and a collection of plants endemic to the island. It covers 80 hectares of land, has over 6000 plant species, and the largest collection of cacti and succulents in Europe.

The Director, Dr Stephan Scholz, is actively involved in conservation and preservation, especially of endemic species, and writing scientific papers including those on invasive species.

The plantings are excellent simply because they all look so natural.

Like many other nineteenth century English gardeners who wanted to collect and grow exotic plants from warmer climes, Sir Thomas Hanbury was drawn to the coast near the French and Italian border. Protected from cold winds by the mountains behind and enjoying high humidity from the sea, the winter temperatures rarely drop below zero, making it possible to grow plants from other Mediterranean climate zones around the world, including Central and South America, South Africa and southern Australia.

In 1867 Hanbury purchased the crumbling ruins of the Palazzo Orengo (built in the 11th century on the site of an ancient Roman villa) on Capo Mortola between Menton and Ventimiglia with the fortune he had made in China from trading in silk, cotton and tea.

With the help of his brother Daniel who was a pharmacist and botanist and the German botanist Ludwig Winte, Hanbury soon made a magnificent botanic garden with many classical features, which attracted the attention of visitors from around the world, including Queen Victoria and other heads of state and Kuo Sung Tao, the first Qing dynasty minister to be accredited in Europe.

Sir Thomas died in 1907 but his daughter-in-law Dorothy also a passionate gardener, maintained the collection, which listed 5800 species in the catalogue of 1912.

Dorothy made some structural changes to the garden between 1925 and 1939 which then sadly suffered serious damage during the Second World War. Dorothy sold the garden to the Italian state in 1960 but due to lack of funds for the required restoration, it was entrusted to the University of Genoa in 1987.

The garden today covers 18 hectares, only half of which is under cultivation, with around 2500 taxa, the remaining half is natural forest of Pinus halpensis. As it covers a steep hillside the garden has been extensively terraced and access is via many flights of steps or paths following the contours and affording occasional stunning views of the sea. There are significant collections of palms, aloes and agaves, araucarias, eucalypts, melaleucas and salvias.

As with the gardens around Montpellier, this garden was exhibiting signs of extreme stress due to the hot summer and absence of rain. It also is seriously understaffed and many of the old trees are in need of restorative pruning. Despite that we enjoyed our visit enormously being alternately delighted to come across plants we had never before seen and many familiar species from home.

Although the perfumed garden, exotic fruit orchard and rose gardens would present much better in spring or early summer it is very valuable to observe those plants which still look wonderful despite extended drought. Several varieties of ornamental passionfruit were in bloom as were the ever reliable plumbago, russelliana, oxalis and brugmansia and a startling magenta dipladenia.

Il se trouve à 12 kms de Cholet dans la Mayenne.

Le parc fut la propriété des Colbert (Ministre de Louis XIV). C’est Alexandre Marcel qui achète les lieux et entreprend d’en créer un jardin, « à la japonaise » vers 1920. Puis le parc est abandonné à sa mort. Il renait en 1980, grâce à l’achat de la commune.

Parc de 29 hectares, traversé par un long lac artificiel, lanternes, Torii, ponts, sculptures, maison de thé ponctuent le paysage au bonheur du visiteur. 300 espèces de plantes, dont la plupart est taillée « en nuages ». De grands conifères, camélias, cornus, azalées, fuchsias, rhododendrons, Acer palmatum, etc.

Situé dans la vieille ville, surplombant la rivière Vienne, tout en terrasses, ce lieu botanique était le jardin de plaisance de l’évêque de Limoges.

Transformé en 1950, il comprend 3000 plantes dont 1500 espèces végétales. Les plantes sont groupées en carrés ou plates-bandes, classées par thèmes : médicinales, alimentaires, colorantes, aromatiques, décoratives, grimpantes etc.

Transformé en 1950, il comprend 3000 plantes dont 1500 espèces végétales.

Les plantes sont groupées en carrés ou plates-bandes, classées par thèmes : médicinales, alimentaires, colorantes, aromatiques, décoratives, grimpantes etc.