The Château de Padiès is a beautiful renaissance château built of locally fired brick and stone. It is set in the countryside overlooking a potager (vegetable garden) with raised beds set in between antique fruit trees, surrounded by boxwood hedges and century old oak trees, a bamboo grove, a developing orchard, deciduous woodlands, and winding boxwood pathways.
In the field adjacent to the château grounds the project of creating a large scale seasonally changing labyrinthine walk was started in 2005. The pastoral hedges, which form the backbone of the maze, are aligned with the contours in harmony with the natural lay of the land. The garden of discovery as we call it, is an experiment in agro ecology and is being developed following permaculture and sustainable development principals. The Padiès project is an attempt to reinstate the domain into its cultural and sustainable context.
Development of the field: visually
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- the winter field as it was
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- summer filed
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- hay to make the counter lines
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- Hay ready at sunset
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- measuring for the contour lines
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- the counter lines
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- the first plants
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- plants on the contour lines
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- the contour lines adjacent field
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- contour lines
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- first growths on the contour lines
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- the hedges
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- the hedges
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- the pig field
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- the grown hedges in spring
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- Spring
The hedges – our forest garden – now produce various fruit and nuts. We grow organic vegetables and graze our animals in the spaces between the hedges. Our produce is for sale at the Puylaurens market on Wednesday mornings, Castres market Friday and Saturday mornings, and directly from the farm – and by order.
The Château’s exceptional façades are listed on the supplementary list of the Monuments Historic (ISMH) and the gardens are open to the public by appointment.
