We peered through round windows cut into hornbeam hedges and sat on wrap-around wicker benches encircling craggy apple trees.

The botanical garden is laid out as a display garden, with geometric pools, arcades, and high hornbeam hedges.

The eight-acre nursery is packed with rare specimens, like the European hornbeam hedge rising over a stone wall, the 250-year-old American dogwood and the Chinese dove tree.

Looking out at the sycamore trees that serve as a leafy green porch for outdoor dining, reading or writing, the eye is drawn over low boxwoods to the opening in the high hornbeam hedge.

At the far end of this floral allee is a niche cut in a hornbeam hedge where a bench welcomes the visitor.

The bedroom looks east, at a curving, clipped hornbeam hedge, and beyond that, to a crescent-shaped beach with golden sea-worn rocks.

This park was expanded to 12 hectares by his son Leon Souvan (1877-1949), who planted it with domestic and exotic trees and surrounded it with a hornbeam hedge.

The gardens also feature a large rectangle of chestnut trees providing shade, and avenues of hornbeam hedges 350 metres long on the west and south.

The garden is a half-circle framed in back by a tall European hornbeam hedge that makes the flowers stand out.

A twig Snaps in the hornbeam hedge.