Photo : Profburp (Bertrand Bouret) / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Château de Loubens Lauragais
The garden of the Château de Loubens-Lauragais, in the Haute-Garonne, is divided into four parts arranged around the château, in the heart of a pretty village.
To the north, meadows redesigned on a French plan, with small classical lawn parterres framed by yews, include a remarkable bath pavilion of 1860 (registered monument), then four squares of wild meadow crossed by a lime avenue of 1820 and a box-lined path to the woods. To the east, a circle opens onto a large grove with the finest trees: plane trees, ashes, acacias, maples, chestnuts, hackberries, poplars, hornbeams, tall box and topiary; a cascade, a stream and the triton pool, where mallards play, lead to a fountain made from the millstone of an old woad mill.
To the west, a vaulted rose colonnade shelters a garden of herbs and flowers. To the south, the terrace, on the site of the medieval castle's closed courtyard, has the remains of a well, an Italian-inspired fountain, flower beds, a path along the cob outbuildings (registered), a topiary box walk and large holm oaks, with a view over the valley to the Pyrenees.
