L’Art du Jardin 2013 @ the Grand Palais Paris

L’Art du Jardin 2013 @ the Grand Palais Paris

LIZ SAYS: Om. Um, we ventured into the Art of the Garden or L’Art du Jardin at Paris’ ever lovely Grand Palais, desiring a just a wee little bit of Printemps. Give me just a little Spring in the cold, rainy air. 

If you have never been to the Grand Palais, its a large steel and Glass tri-domed structure, which is magical in its own right. Now, imagine this large Faberge egg of a building, filled with pollarded  fruit trees and huge puffs of rhododendrons, a spiral tree house, adult-sized composting mushrooms and bamboo gardening huts. And, oh, yeah, rocks hanging from trees and gun shaped wall planters share the soft floored wonderland.

I just marveled at the size of most of the plants. There were two groves of trees that had been hauled with earth movers sitting on huge beds of top soil and ground cover. The whole place smelled of green. 

There were celeb decorated bikes parked together, adding more surrealist magic to the mix. 

There was a tall, green wooden column-like enclosure with a cloth door. Inside, there were flowers, hanging and fallen. A rush of floral tones invigorated my nostrils while the darkness that followed each person who entered made the tiny space feel smaller. The sudden sweet shock of being totally surrounded by flowers made the English interior designer’s love of clashing florals make sense. All the color in the world whilst the soft fragrances battle for domination in a tiny space. Nice.

There were yurts and tiny caravans, Mondrian patterned planting systems and black pillows of soil growing spider plants. Oh, and did I mention the hanging moss, the long strings of hanging moss and rods of hanging plants were glorious.