France is famous for its grand gardens such as Versailles, Vaux le Vicomte and Fontainebleau which are the living proof of the superiority of man over nature and -only half in jest – of France and the French over everybody else.
I’m a Francophile but even I sometimes wonder whether some of these gardens are almost “too great and grand for their own good” and need to be re-assessed afresh.
I visited Fontainebleau again earlier this week with a group of Gardens Trust members as part of a tour looking at important French gardens mainly in the Loire Valley. Fontainebleau was our first port of call. It’s just over 30 miles [55km] south east of Paris and is unusual because its gardens, created over the last 500 or so years, include examples of most of the most important stylistic developments in garden design. Unsurprisingly Fontainebleau is not merely a national monument but a UNESCO World Heritage site.But is what you see today anything like they were when they were created and are they worth their reputation?
Transformed from purely a utilitarian garden to a much more horticulturally interesting one in the 18thc it became one of the most significant gardens in the world, before sinking into decline under British rule in the 19thc when much of the original ground was appropriated for grand institutional buildings.
The Garden History Blog 
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