The Jardin Serre de la Madone (6 hectares), often simply known as the Serre de la Madone (Hill of the Madonna), is a garden notable for its design and rare plantings. It is located at 74, Route de Gorbio, Menton

Menton

Menton is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.Situated on the French Riviera, along the Franco-Italian border, it is nicknamed la perle de la France ....

, Alpes-Maritimes

Alpes-Maritimes

Alpes-Maritimes is a department in the extreme southeast corner of France.- History : was created by Octavian as a Roman military district in 14 BC, and became a full Roman province in the middle of the 1st century with its capital first at Cemenelum and subsequently at Embrun...

, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur or PACA is one of the 27 regions of France.It is made up of:* the former French province of Provence* the former papal territory of Avignon, known as Comtat Venaissin...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. It is open to the public (every day except Monday) during the warm months of the year. It is presently (2008) being restored to its former condition.

The garden was created in 1924-1939 by Lawrence Johnston

Lawrence Johnston

Major Lawrence Waterbury Johnston was a British soldier and garden creator.- Early years & military career :Johnston was born in Paris, France, into a family of wealthy American East Coast stockbrokers from Baltimore. He went to England to study at Trinity College, Cambridge. Soon after his...

, creator of the celebrated Hidcote Manor Garden

Hidcote Manor Garden

Hidcote Manor Garden is a garden located on the outskirts of the small village of Hidcote Bartrim, near Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England and owned by the National Trust....

 (1907), on a hillside in the Gorbio Valley with farmhouse to which Johnston added two large wings. Johnston traveled the world collecting plants, and Serre de la Madone offered an excellent site for plants from subtropical regions. Over the years he created a series of terraces among old olive

Olive

The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...

 trees, planted and tended by twelve gardeners. After Johnston's death in 1958, subsequent owners maintained it with varying degrees of respect for the original plantings. In 1999 the property was purchased by the nonprofit Conservatoire du Littoral, which is currently restoring it to Johnson's design.

Today the garden contains an excellent collection of unusual subtropical plants centered around a double pool, and rising in terraces. As at Hidcote, Johnson used hedges and low walls to divide the garden into discrete areas. Notable plant specimens include a superb Mahonia siamensis and Arbutus unedo, umbrella pines, Buddleja officinalis

Buddleja officinalis

Buddleja officinalis is a deciduous early-spring flowering shrub native to west Hubei, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces in China introduced to western cultivation in 1908....

, Rosa chinensis

Rosa chinensis

Rosa chinensis, known commonly as the China Rose, is a member of the genus Rosa native to Southwest China in Guizhou, Hubei, and Sichuan Provinces....

, and bamboo

Bamboo

Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....

, as well as good collections of cycad

Cycad

Cycads are seed plants typically characterized by a stout and woody trunk with a crown of large, hard and stiff, evergreen leaves. They usually have pinnate leaves. The individual plants are either all male or all female . Cycads vary in size from having a trunk that is only a few centimeters...

s and succulents from around the world.