There are not only trees at the Arboretum! Between the wooded areas, Chèvreloup preserves vast natural meadows.
The meadows of the Arboretum are a haven of abundant biodiversity: flowers and grasses, butterflies and foraging insects, etc. Avenues of lawns, straight or meandering, regularly mown, make it possible to walk through the meadows and enhance by contrast the herbaceous vegetation and its blooms.
In springtime, the meadows are filled in succession with many flowers as summer approaches: daisies, bird’s foot trefoil, buttercups, sheep sorrel, mallow, scabiosa…as well as a half dozen species of orchids. When summer arrives, the meadows are dominated by the vaporous flowering of grasses, very decorative in clusters, mixed with a few late perennial flowers that catch our interest during summer. At summer’s end and in early autumn, the copious flowering of knapweed and autumn crocuses once again particularly arouses our interest.
Among the most remarkable sectors of the Arboretum, we can cite the meadow northeast of the California Grove (rich spring blooms on marl soil), the meadows situated between the Avenue of Pterocaryas and the Woods of the Old Nursery (carpet of umbellifers and crocuses at summer’s end) and the meadows in the southern half of the horticultural area (knapweed, crocuses, orchids, etc.)
