Intervene in a garden classified or registered as a historical monument
Managing a heritage garden requires respect for the permanence of the historical composition and its changes over time, while taking into account, over the long term, a living and fragile system. The intervention party often oscillates between respect for heritage and freedom of creation.
A garden classified or registered as a historical monument is subject to the same rules as any other historical monument. Therefore, like other historical monuments, the heritage dimension will be privileged and the intervention studied and documented.
In the most favorable case, the garden is in good condition and requires only ordinary interventions. It is first and always necessary to contain, within limits to be defined, the dynamics of the plant. Structures must remain clear, perspectives open, composition legible.
It is at the same time necessary to maintain the living components and the prescription (?); to remedy the small disorders but, above all, to cope with the aging of plants (whether their life cycle is long or short) and thus replace. In this palimpsest that is the old or historical garden, the replacement of elderly, sick or dangerous subjects permanently changes the relationships of volumes between plant masses and, therefore, the overall perception of the garden.
The catering
Restoring “identically” is a less common policy. Indeed, how can a return to a vanished state of a perpetual becoming essence composition be justified?
Restoring a garden today is above all restoring historical and landscape coherence to the placewhile conserving biodiversity and soil dynamics. Conserving the biodiversity of a garden means conserving heritage. Therefore, any restoration action can only be considered after precise diagnoses and adapted to the case studied, highlighting the impoverishment or deterioration of the heritage.
The restoration of the great alley of the Tuileries Garden
The restoration of the great alley of the Tuileries garden by a plantation of 92 elms (Ulmus minor Vada ® ‘Wanoux’) from the researchINRAE (National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment ) has aimed to restore the historic dimensions of the driveway and to find the landscape articulation between the garden and the axis of the Champs-Élysées created by gardener André Le Nôtre, while contributing significantly to the introduction of graphiose-resistant elms in large historical compositions.
Visit the project’s presentation page on the Louvre Museum website
The management plan
Since 2005, the Ministry of Culture has advocated the establishment of management plans for gardens protected as historic monuments.
The controlled management of a garden, the conservation of its heritage interest, its biodiversity and the dynamics of its soil, are possible only if all the work is envisaged in a multi-year program. Developed on the initiative of the garden owner or manager, this programming document helps plan, over a fixed period, the measures and actions to be undertaken in a park or garden.
The management plan, based on a detailed inventory, is a tool for technical, scientific, health, economic and ecological monitoring of the garden to preserve or even increase its heritage and environmental value.
Consult the practical sheet The management plan Jardin, 2012
Examples of Specific Technical Clauses Book (CCTP) for Management Plan Development
The drafting of the specifications by the contracting authority is an important moment in the management plan. The editor must clearly express a state of knowledge of the garden (history, state of documentary sources and archives, plant palette, etc.) and objectives, landscape or economic.
The following two specifications, drawn up for the management plans for the Champs-sur-Marne (2007) and Pau (2018) areas, show a clear increase in the consideration of biodiversity:
- Domaine de Champs-sur-Marne, 2007
- National Domain of Pau, 2018
Tree management
The tree is one of the essential elements of the structure and composition of a garden. Plant issues are proposed here in the format of a practical sheet:
- The management of trees driven in architectural form undergoing mowing abandonment:
Worksheet: Study on the behaviour and management proposal of trees in architectural form undergoing mowing abandonment, 2012 - Precautions in the event of a storm in a garden protected as a historic monument:
Worksheet: Dealing with the Storm in a Remarkable Park, 2012 - Coping with climate change in a heritage garden (under development)
The promotion of trades and skills
Managing a garden requires many skills. Some tools or techniques remain very specific and are highlighted during «Rendez-vous aux jardins», in conferences or films dedicated to the trades.
To look at
The gardener and his tool, 2009
The film was shot in 2009 by Aymeric François on a screenplay by Jean-Michel Sainsard at the Domaine de Champs-sur-Marne with the help of gardener Gilles Lebobe.
The gardener evokes what was the shearing of the palisades and other trees in the form of an architecture. Despite its versatility and performance, this little-known tool is currently rarely used.
Tree Study Day, 2021
The spectacular replanting of the grand allée des Tuileries, led by the Louvre Museum in 2021, can be placed within the broader framework of the management of historic gardens in the context of climate change, by giving the floor to experts in ornamental arboriculture and urban forestry.
The Tree Study Day, organised on 26 May 2021 by the Louvre Museum’s Public Institution, gives a voice to specialists in the management of trees in heritage spaces.
The garden facing climate change
For more than a decade, specialists in France and Europe have been pooling their findings and their intervention methodologies. This page presents some bibliography elements and examples of colloquia, study days or conferences highlighting case studies and disseminating key recommendations or taking into account current conservation and restoration issues.
Conservation-restoration professional days, Conservation-restoration at the heart of civil society
Conservation-restoration and dynamics of territorial development
Stéphanie de Courtois, lecturer ÉNSA Versailles, master Historical gardens, heritage, landscape (JHPP)
New ways of living, such as the rise of concerns and ecological awareness, increasingly put the landscape at the centre of the concerns of the Aedilis, especially in rural and peri-urban areas. Challenges abound in the face of difficulties: unequal water resources, shared and sometimes conflicting uses of roads and forests, the desire to develop green tourism… In the necessary questioning of habits, summoning the gaze of history is not an evidence: in what way can a past well and truly gone can feed a project of territory? Regularly called to carry out historical and landscape diagnoses, researchers and students of the Master’s degree in Historical Gardens, heritage, landscape experience that the ability to reread the long history of a territory and to restore it creates opportunities for dialogue, transformation of views and enrichment of issues, especially when an old domain is its heart. As a result, the knowledge of landscape heritage invites us to re-read management methods, to reconnect the link of a community with its territory, to welcome in this history the neo-inhabitants and to illuminate the difficult choices to make. Examples of municipalities (Braine, Bresles, Vivoin and Guebwiller) are summoned: the reappropriation of their old domains has allowed, in different and diversely successful ways, progress towards a more shared territory.
Conservation-restoration professional days, Let’s be actors in conservation-restoration research
Restoring elm: graphiosis of elm and selection of resistant varieties
Jean Pinon, Honorary Research Director, Institut national de la recherche agronomique de Nancy
Elm is a victim of graphiosis, vascular mycosis causing rapid wilting and death.
This disease was imported from Asia in the early 20th century and then from the United States (more aggressive form) in the early 1970s. This second epidemic severely decimated the elm throughout Europe and reduced it to the state of shrub.
For high value trees, a preventive treatment by fungicide injection allowed to temporarily save some trees. Towards the insect vectors of the fungus (bark beetles), no method of control (insecticide, trapping) appeared effective and respectful of the environment. The remaining native elms did not show sufficient resistance (INRAE-Cemagref study).
Only the selection of resistant varieties allows the cultivation of trees becoming adults and sustainably healthy. Several are available, including Asian hybrids. A Franco-Dutch collaboration has selected Lutetia ” and “ Vada » (co-selections INRAE – Alterra), of essentially European ancestry and planted more than 300,000 copies in France and neighbouring countries.
Study and training day: Gardens facing climate change
The effects of climate change on parks and gardens have been observed worldwide for many years. The study day of Rendez-Vous aux Jardins with the theme «Gardens facing climate change» proposes to share observations and reflections on the consequences of climate change on gardens in France and Europe: changing seasons, new pests, changes in the plant palette, changes in gardening practices and their temporality, changes in the way we look at parks and gardens.
The gardener and the project, for adaptation to climate change
Jean-Michel Sainsard, Parks and Gardens Expert, Department of Historical Monuments and Heritage Sites, Ministry of Culture
Perceiving climate change as a cleaver is a reductive vision of the garden as a work.
Even if it is worrying in itself, the disappearance of certain plants cannot be considered insurmountable to the survival of gardens. Unlike the forest area, we must remember that, in a garden, the stakes are above all landscaping. Landscapers are thus led to rethink gardens, to create other forms that enrich the garden with other meanings.
The history of the gardens, the structures still in place confirm that the research is not new. The experience of plants becoming unsuitable, forcing us to take over entire structures, reminds us that the answer is always in the project, that the historic garden also consists of the surrounding landscape, axes, full and empty, the building, uses and practices, of the economy… This requires great capacities of intellectual openness and pedagogy to question certain forms and historical compositions. We are at the dawn of a new thinking of the historic garden, which trusts the ability of the living to adapt to the project and the management of the garden.
Professional days conservation-restoration, Anticipate! Know, plan, act in conservation-restoration
Anticipation actions in a historic garden
Odile Bureau, Head of Gardens, National Domain of Saint-Cloud
The conservation of tree heritage is based on the preservation of living capital. Indeed, the tree is a subject that grows and ages with us. We provide support at all stages of his life to ensure his good growth and development. Trees planted in line, installed in a wooded square, or chosen for a landscape composition have different constraints. In addition, trees are like other living beings subject to diseases and suffer the ravages of insect attacks. Garden managers therefore need to know how to act preventively in a changing environment. Storms and climatic hazards impose strong constraints on the tree heritage and we must also take into account the protection of the public and prevent tree falls during these episodes of bad weather. Finally, the work of anticipation and projection on the future is fundamental in order to predict the garden of tomorrow. We must now select the species to plant compatible with global warming, while preserving the essence of a garden designed by Le Nôtre, and leave our grandchildren remarkable trees in the field.
Professional days conservation-restoration Preserve and restore cultural heritage, practices and professions in evolution
Session 3 – Evolution of professional practice: feedback and contemporary issues
Chablis, Volis and Faux Ventis… The storm of December 26, 1999 in Champs-sur-Marne Park
Jean-Michel Sainsard, Parks and Gardens Expert, Department of Historic Monuments and Heritage Sites
The storms of 26 and 27 December 1999 swept through France with an unknown violence. These two extremely powerful extra tropical cyclones are responsible in Europe for the death of 140 people and $20 billion in property damage. The French forest, meanwhile, totals nearly 140 million cubic meters of wood cut. Among the historical monuments, the gardens suffered the most. Tens of thousands of trees in Versailles and Saint-Cloud. Champs-sur-Marne has lost all of its groves. If these storms have raised awareness of climate change, the heritage gardener wonders about the restoration and management techniques to put in place. This reflection led to the implementation of the management plan of Champs-sur-Marne which will favor the natural regeneration of felled groves.
Innovation to conserve: research and development in conservation and restoration of cultural property
Session 2 – Preliminary studies and diagnosis: new tools, new applications
Diagnostic methods and decision-making for tree management in heritage sites
Denis Mirallié, landscape engineer.
Like the improvement of the knowledge of the biology of the tree and as the taking into account of the tree outside forest or more commonly ornamental, the methods of phytosanitary diagnosis have, in recent years, largely evolved, sometimes leading to a detailed assessment of the health of trees. The legal responsibility of the tree owner in the event of an accident and some tragic accidents (Aix-en-Provence, Strasbourg) have contributed to the development of this research. Nevertheless, as fine as a health diagnosis, the decision to manage in fine also depends on the conjunction of several other factors that determine a hazard.
Excerpt from this work, an article written with several voices was published in the journal La Pierre d'Angle, review of the National Association of Architects of Buildings of France
Stéphanie de Courtois, garden historian, Denis Mirallié, landscape engineer, and Jean-Michel Sainsard, park and garden expert at the Ministry of Culture
“ The gardener and the project, for adaptation to climate change », La Pierre d'Angle, Dossier #69 Climate Change… and Man? , December 2016
Conservation-restoration professional days, Preserving despite everything? Limits and challenges
What future without boxwood?
Jean-Michel Sainsard, Parks and Gardens Expert, Department of Historical Monuments and Heritage Sites, Ministry of Culture
The boxwood beds of the world’s most famous gardens are threatened by mushrooms Cylindrocladium buxicola, the Volutella buxi and, to a lesser extent, by the caterpillar of the butterfly Cydalima perspectalis (Boxwood Moth). These incurable diseases and pests cause great distress among garden owners and managers. If there is any hope of effective treatment for Boxwood Pyrale, it is time to admit that there will be no treatment for fungi and that the solution, as for elm graphiosis (Graphium ulmi) or the coloured canker of the plane tree (Ceratocystis platani), is the discovery of a resistant clone. This is a serious situation for botany and biodiversity, it is an emotional shock for the owner and gardener, who must resign themselves to separate from beloved plants. Finally, this is a major financial issue for some gardens. But is it as serious as it is meant for gardens? If the replacement of boxwood leads in topiary or in free port is relatively simple, the replacement of boxwood borders composing the beds is more complicated. Nurserymen search unsuccessfully for the plant with the same characteristics as boxwood. This approach once again takes the road that leads to the wrong front door of the garden. We are looking for a solution by the plant and not by the project. So we must remember that the bed is a writing of the moment. We must redesign, recompose, reinvent these beds. With luck and genius, the sleeping beds can be awakened and sublimated.
Noting a lack of reflection on the garden in the face of climate change, a conference bringing together most of the European specialists was organized in Potsdam, in the park of Sanssouci, in September 2014, in cooperation with the German Environment Foundation (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, DBU) and ICOMOS-IFLA (International Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes) with the objective of writing a book of recommendations for the conservation of historic gardens in the face of climate change.
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