Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Inside The Courtyard

Once inside the courtyard at the Château du Grand-Pressigny, you are surrounded on three sides by various wings of the castle. The fourth side is open to the southeast and the views out over the town's rooftops below are spectacular.

The neatly trimmed trees inside the courtyard are readying for the spring bloom.

This view is of an arch through the Renaissance wing that bisects the interior courtyard; it leads to the ruins of the old donjon (keep). The tilleuls (linden trees) -- at least I think that's what they are -- are pollarded so that the spring's new growth will be compact and neat.

9 comments:

  1. If I remember correctly Susan, of Susan & Simon, had a very interesting post, some time ago, on pollarded trees on their blog, Days on the Claise.

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  2. This is such a lovely photo. The shadow of the trees on the wall in the afternoon sunshine. Brilliant.

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  3. It is a great photo, and I'm pretty sure those are linden trees.

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  4. An interesting photo, it almost looks like a surreal painting.

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  5. That is an INCREDIBLE photo... really fabulous.

    Now, we have Linden trees (they are, apparently, common in the U.S. as trees in the strip of land between the sidewalk and the street, because they grow quickly), but no one ever pollards them. I wonder why not??

    Judy

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  6. chm, I'll have to look that up.

    jean, thanks!

    diogenes, merci. At first I thought they were platanes, but after thinking about it I realized they weren't.

    starman, thanks!

    judy, severely shaping nature is just so French where gardening is concerned. We Americans inherited the more British way of gardening, totally manicured to look natural.

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  7. Beautiful photo, Walt!

    "totally manicured to look natural" Love it! :)

    BettyAnn

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  8. bettyann, :)

    writer, thanks!

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