The Gardens of Flaran Abbey Gardens, Parks in Valence-sur-Baïse

Flaran Abbey “on the nature side”

At Flaran Abbey, alongside listed buildings and exhibitions, there are also 3 hectares of park and gardens that you can (re)discover, in a preserved natural environment on the banks of the Baïse. Within the walls of the site, the monastic garden was redesigned in the 18th century into a pleasure garden known as “à la française”. For several years, part of it, next to the dovecote, has housed a medieval-inspired garden. Evoking the old garden of the monks, it is made up of several parts. The most important is the garden of herbs or herbularius which shelters, in plessis of chestnut, the medicinal plants formerly used by the monks. In front of it, in the vegetable garden or hortus, are grown on flowerbeds small fruit trees, market gardening plants and vines in stakes. Near the vegetable garden, an area of grassland mown once a year helps preserve the site's biodiversity. The last part is devoted to the orchard or viridarium.

The medieval-inspired garden makes it possible to develop various thematic activities around the pharmacopoeia or the cuisine of the Middle Ages, by participating for example each year in the national event Rendez-vous aux jardins, but also by developing educational projects thanks to the school garden. Far from being fixed, the garden of Flaran Abbey is also a place of novelties to discover.

Outside the site, a wooded park is accessible all year round and gives access to the Baïse trail. Developed by the Gers County Council, this pedestrian path connects the port of Valence-sur-Baïse on one side and the Gauge leisure center in Condom on the other side, passing through the double lock of Graziac.