Flower gardens in France

2. French Gardening, in respect to the Culture of Flowers and Plants of Ornament 247.A taste for flowers appears to have existed very early in France. Charlemagne loved gardens, and was most particular in giving directions to his gardeners. In his Capitularium de Villis et Curtis, which he must have written about the end of the eighth century, he enumerates the sorts of plants which he desires may be grown in all his gardens. This list, however, excepting the rose and the lily, is entirely culinary and medicinal.