A true revitalization of the imagination, the International Garden Festival in Chaumont-sur-Loire, a castle of dreams, returns from April 19 to November 2, 2025, with an edition that cultivates the marvelous. On the theme "Once Upon a Time in the Garden," 25 creations are like plant fables, somewhere between folklore and critical ecology.
Every spring, Chaumont-sur-Loire abandons its sleepy trappings to once again become a fertile stage, a chlorophyll theater where storytelling takes root. People no longer come here simply to contemplate, but to listen, smell, and wander through narratives of shadow and light, moss and metal, where the absurd rubs shoulders with pure emotion. For this 2025 edition, 10 gardens stand out from the choir, like so many chapters in a novel that the earth has decided to write itself.
Fantastico Pinocchio (Italy) – A Moral in Compost
Collodi's fable unfolds in a spiral: a red rope of morning glories, a wooden theater, reflections of consciousness. The garden designed by Priola and Filosa turns each visitor into a puppeteer. Reclaimed wood, Venetian vine poles—everything has a second life. What if lying made the stems grow longer?
Himalayan Rhapsody (India) – Mental Altitude
The unTAG Architecture & Interiors studio has created a miniature Annapurna on the banks of the Loire: terraces of white pebbles, misty rhododendrons, slate schist, and Tibetan horns blur the line between mountain and myth. Everything vibrates with a distant, almost sacred breath.
The Island of Happiness (France) – Floating Utopia
The designers imagined botanical rafts, free from their roots, that float between dream and reality. Camellias, dwarf wisteria, and eucalyptus create a weightless archipelago. Here, the garden becomes a promise of elsewhere.
Flora and Zephyr (Belgium) – Rose and Wind
Two wind turbines disguised as wicker columns launch a ballet of pollen, guided by the weather. Under programmed LEDs, the roses tell their stories at the speed of the wind. A techno-poetic garden, economical and sensual.
The secret garden of Argoat (Brittany) – Intimate Landes
Laser-engraved Ogham, acoustic menhirs, curlew cries... this miniature slice of Brittany evokes more of a legend than a territory. Dwarf pines, heather, and kersantite compose a granite score where roots murmur in Breton.
100 Years of Sleep (Quebec) – Foam bed for anxious climates
Beneath tubes of flax, a bed of sphagnum moss, dormant sprouts and a programmed dormancy. This garden speaks of waiting, patience, and resilience. In a time of climate crisis, it's a Sleeping Beauty that will slowly sprout for All Saints' Day.
Tales from the Alhambra (Spain) – Geometría encantada
3D-printed azulejos, straight cypresses, and shadowy mashrabiyas: this is a modern tribute to Andalusian elegance. Between travertine and the scent of jasmine, Washington Irving watches discreetly over the pools.
The Epic of the Magic Beanstalk (Netherlands) – Compost, Sky and Urine
A giant bean climbs atop a vertical worm composter fed with recycled urine. A spiral staircase leads up to a cloud of misty algae, creating a magical atmosphere.
Barochories (Portugal) – Sowing gusts
Parachute capsules suspended from stainless steel cables disperse achenes and knowledge about barochoric dispersion. A subtle allusion to Portuguese montados , the garden flies with the wind, teaching with every gust.
The Garden of Reflections (Switzerland) – Inverted Sky
Black water mirrors reflect miniature daffodils and beech groves. Thanks to a ring of plexiglass, the sky becomes ground. A seemingly simple yet stunningly poetic device. Water circulates in a loop, filtered by sedges, and captured on the castle roofs. Here, every drop counts.
Gardens of stories, stories of territories... What the festival offers is neither folklore nor folklore-bashing . It's a reinterpretation. Traditions, tales, myths are rerooted here in their region. Each garden is a reinvented fragment of terroir: laser-engraved Brittany, printed Andalusia, or revisited Himalayas. Plants are not incidental, but protagonists. In Chaumont-sur-Loire, the garden becomes a text, and each visitor an amazed reader.
