When you think of a typical French garden, what images come to mind? Box hedges clipped to within an inch of their lives? Acres of parterre, with the occasional tulip dotted about? Espaliered fruit trees marching in strict unison down the gravel walkways?

Such restrained, refined, and predominantly green gardens are the epitome of French style, and can be seen to great effect at châteaux such as Sassy, but the Jardin des Renaudies, in the Mayenne countryside, is a very different affair.

Inspired by classic English gardens, but seen through a French eye, its nine acres of colour and pattern flow from one area to the next, in gentle undulations. Great sweeps of well-manicured lawn (cut seven times before it opens to the public each April) lead the visitor from shrub roses via rhododendrons to an ornamental lake with a water mill. Open vistas end with enticing allées, luring the visitor to explore beyond the weeping birches to the delights that lie hidden beyond.

This is an experience with which the British may be familiar, though perhaps without the lush abundance offered by the temperate climate of Mayenne. But in France the English style tends to be the province of private gardens. It's rarer to find such an example open to the public. In fact, the backbone of the Jardins des Renaudies was created when it was still in private hands: the Renaudie family owned the garden for generations, then handed it over to the commune of Colombiers du Plessis as part of the national heritage - 'la patrimoine' - when the last owner became too old to care for it.

In the spirit of this commitment to local traditions, the buildings of the former home farm now reveal different aspects of French life. One building, formerly the home of three generations of French farmers, displays a typical Mayenne interior; another has an agricultural museum with calvados barrels, a clog shop and a saddlery; and another is host to a wood-burning oven where pancakes and loaves are baked in time-honoured fashion every October. Even the ticket office is situated in the original dovecote of the farm (Colombiers du Plessis, means The Woven Dovecotes), while much of the boundary fencing is made from the willow hurdles for which the area was once well known.

In addition to its floral display, the garden hosts various festivals every year, starting with rhodedendrons in April and ending with pumpkins in October. Mid-July might find painters practising their skills outdoors, while in August the bonsai festival takes place in the Japanese-inspired section of the garden — a fascinating area where the fencing, constructed from old farm machinery, looks like a modern art installation.

The mainstay of the main garden, however, is the mixture of flowering shrubs and groundcovers. These start in April with the abundant white blossom of Exochorda 'The Bride'. In May, it's the brightness of the many rhodedendrons and azaleas that catches the eye, while, close up, the delicate alternate pink and yellow flowers of weigela 'Marjorie' are a refined delight. Viburnum plicatum and pale-variegated horizontal cornus trees are used not as specimen plants but to lighten the darkest corners.

Scent is also important in this garden, from heady peonies to the flowering shoulder-high sage that visitors brush as they pass by. Roses such as the rambler Wedding Day and other flowering shrubs are closely planted to flank the paths and retain their perfume.

Later in the year, under the burning sun of high summer, the garden turns cooler and bluer, especially with the many varieties of hydrangea, mainly the blue macrophyllas so beloved of French taste, which vary from gentian through to shades of plum. Then by early autumn the garden is zinging with sunset colours, with the herbaceous borders really coming into their own.

These are planted chiefly with perennials to keep down labour, though there are also sweeps of bedded-out busy lizzies under the trees. In the central, elliptical bed, coneflowers take the foreground, with gaps filled in by orange and red dahlias, raised in an enclosed garden, safe from the whipping Mayenne winds. These are backed with giant Joe Pye Weed, thunderously pink under the September skies. Then, as the garden closes, at the end of October, the Japanese crimson glory vine ends the year in a blaze of colour, surrounded by the bronzing foliage of Japanese chestnuts and butter-yellow tulip trees.

Although the style is theoretically English, and most of the plant types are familiar to British visitors, many of the 3,000 plant varieties in the garden are French. It's useful, then, to find that some of them are for sale in the small nursery attached to the teashop. Even varieties known to the British grow somewhat taller and more abundantly in the rich Mayenne soil.

In contrast to the many English plants, the garden also boasts a typical French water mill and lavoir — the communal laundry house, many of which can still be seen in the granite country towns of this region. In May, these old granite buildings are surrounded by sky-blue irises, which in turn lead the visitor to the large pond, where the planting turns wilder, consisting mainly of water-loving cornus, willow, and flowering grasses.

Another, more distinctively French, area is the jardin de curé which in England we might call a cottage garden. Here, standard fruit trees stand guard over beds of sorrel, herbs, vegetables for the kitchen, and cutting flowers for the house, such as love-lies-bleeding in both its green and burgundy colourways.

The melange of formal and informal garden at the Jardins is very enticing, but, typical of French gardens, the general atmosphere is very relaxed. Dogs, for instance, are welcome, and barefoot strolling is positively encouraged — everywhere, women can be seen, court shoes in hand, enjoying the soft, springy lawn underfoot, and families happily picnic on the grass. There is also a tea shop in which to rest up at the end of the visit. All this, and not a bit of topiary in sight.