The Gardens Festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire (page 1)

The Conservatoire International des Parcs et des Jardins et du Paysage participates in the upkeep of most of the gardens and parks at the Chateaux in the Loire Valley. The Conservatoire also offers workshops and training programs for the general public, as well as temporary exhibitions, visits to its theme gardens, its greenhouse (with a host of subtropical plants) and to its experimental garden where new plant associations are tested throughout the four seasons.

The conservatoire also created the annual Gardens Festival which brings together botanists, horticulturists, and landscape architects, from many different horizons and with differing talents, to create gardens especially for the festival.
"Libres!" (free!) was the theme for the 2000 show; to celebrate the freedom of expression and creation of the participants whose genius never fails to bring out surprise and emotions in visitors to the gardens.

Some participants use "found objects" (or plants) sculpted by Mother Nature herself, like Dominique Mansion who put together two pollarded willow trees in her garden of «Faces ».
Others preferred the sterile artificial objects in Madame Arpel's garden the sister of the main character in the film "Mon Oncle" by Jacques Tati (1958) like Christophe Malmouche with his "fish scene"  and his lawn made of synthetic carpet.

As we all know gardens cannot exist without man to create them and to live in them. In this light, the Austrailian Jenny Jones invites us to her dream- inspired table, loaded with colorful and sweet-smelling plants.
But dreams turn into reverie and meditation when you enter the "China Garden" by Shun-Bao Du, Bin Hu Zhang & Hai Qian Zen, in the "Archipelago" by Japan's Shodo Suzuki, or even mysticism in the enclosed garden made from dry-stones called "Palestine", a miniature replica of the garden build by Bedouin stone workers in Bethlehem this winter.

Sy. M.

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