Travel Stories: International Garden Festival, France 2019

When I was putting together the itinerary for the French garden and chateau tour I led last month, I was hoping to find the French version of the Chelsea Flower Show. Even though the International Garden Festival isn’t quite on a par with Chelsea, it was just what I had in mind.

This festival takes place on the grounds of Chateau de Chaumont and runs from Apr. 25-Nov. 3. This provided me with a lot more flexibility in choosing the dates for our trip since the Chelsea Flower Show only lasts a week (typically the 3rd week of May, in case you’re curious).

This is the 28th year of the International Garden Festival. This year’s theme is the “Gardens of Paradise.” The concept is to combine technology and nature harmoniously. There are 24 show gardens which were created by international teams of landscape architects, urban planners, designers, and artists.

According to the show’s website, they explained the following: The competitors of the 2019 edition have offered a contemporary vision of this paradise, successfully combining a Utopian version of this dream ‘other place’ with modern-day inventions, in terms of both materials and plants.” I don’t know if that explanation helps, but it at least gives you an idea of what they had in mind!

There are also 14 permanent gardens on the chateau grounds: the Chinese garden, mirror garden, English garden, Japanese garden, water garden, old rose arch, African garden, the children’s garden, and the experimental vegetable garden. Everything is grown using environmentally-friendly methods.

There were even a couple of shopping opportunities (although nothing like the possibilities at Chelsea): the Chateau Boutique has books, games, souvenirs, and edible items. And the Garden Boutique features books, seeds, plants, vases, pots, etc. There were also some restaurants available to festival-goers.

But back to Chateau de Chaumont: we had the opportunity to explore the chateau and it was lovely! The setting is very peaceful and it was fun wandering through the various rooms.

Here are photos from our visit to the International Garden Festival. Remember that you can click on any of them to view a much larger image.

 

Above left: not a bad location for your chateau! Above right: Chateau de Chaumont.

 

 

 

Above left & right: This was an interesting show garden. It was raised on “legs” with a hole in the middle (and also viewing points here and there along the perimeter). When you went underneath it and popped your head up through the middle, the designers wanted you to feel like you were surrounded by a garden. I was tickled to see the butterfly on the right!

 

 

Above left: A fantastic double delphinium. Above right: I believe this is Cirsium rivulare ‘Atropurpureum’.