The chartreuses are a rare architectural structure in France. They are open-air rooms located on a terrace overlooking the canals, connected by a succession of arcades.
The walls, around 4 meters high, were designed to create a succession of microclimates, allowing fruit production to be spread out over time while providing the best ripening conditions.
This type of architecture is similar to that of the Potager du Roi in Versailles or the Murs à pêches in Montreuil, created by the great gardener La Quintinie in the 17th century.
Spread over 4,000 m2 and nestling within the high walls of the Carthusian monasteries, five gardens evoke the evolution of the art of gardening in France. Moving from one garden to the next, we pass from one era to another.
Along the canal, in the shade of a bald cypress and an American oak, there is a long rectangular bed of perennials: these are herbaceous plants that flower for several years. Each year their stems and flowers die and are reborn in the summer. These plants are of different heights, with staggered flowering, so that there is always a variety in full bloom.
Planted according to a classical design, one enters through a pathway surmounted by arcades of pear trees and punctuated by fruit trees in columns. It presents the techniques developed in the 17th century by Jean-Baptiste de La Quintinie in the Potager du Roi in Versailles. It consists of multiple fruit forms: candelabra, fan, double cordons, U or double U palmettes. Whether free or trellised, their perfectly balanced structure and reduced vegetation allow light to pass through, allowing the sap to nourish all the fruits, which will be larger and more colourful.
The Charterhouse is surrounded by a Renaissance-style promenade of lime trees in a series of arcades linked by a canopy of vegetation.
Between the cloister's walkway and the outside walls, a collection of simple plants is laid out in tiles. Here, you'll find a selection of medicinal, condiment, tinctorial and melliferous plants.
The heady scent of curry and the dyeing plant woad evoke the countless plants imported to France during the Renaissance. Surrounding the well, apple trees pruned into wheels, superimposed trays or May trees evoke the fashion of the period, when people liked to give shrubs beautiful but unusual shapes.
This charterhouse evokes the great era of French gardens, which reached their peak in the 17th century under the impetus of Le Nôtre. One of their characteristics, the "parterres de broderie", are like a carpet spread out in front of the castle as an extension of elegance and wealth. Another important feature is the trellis, a sumptuous decoration first created by Le Nôtre for the King at Versailles, which later became fashionable in all the gardens of the Lords at that time. Here the parterre of embroidery describes volutes and reproduces fleur-de-lis. In the boxwood borders, white roses bloom abundantly. The central pool is made of yew trees. The trellis stands theatrically before the perspective of the canals.
