It is gorgeous here now everyday. Hard to believe we haven't had any rain in almost a week (and this from a Californian who is used to seeing no rain for nine months at a stretch!). Everyday is a surfeit of sunshine, with temperatures teetering just this side of too hot and the lawns in the Luxembourg Garden a crazy quilt of sun worshipers.
About a week ago I showed up for a guided tour of the garden, given once a month by a senior gardener, and he explained a major change I'd been wondering about. The last time we were here (in 2001), the grass was off-limits, but since then Paris's new socialist mayor (first time in 130 years the Left has taken control of this city) has liberated the lawns and returned them to the people. Now, instead of being interdit (forbidden), patches of grass are occasionally en repos (resting). There is a rotating system of lawns resting and lawns "working" (a vegetal version of le 35 heures?), and the French actually respect this. They have been well-trained from infancy to "Keep Off The Grass," so I guess it's not too surprising.
I wish I could show you a picture of the Luxembourg Garden now, with its orgy of sunbathers. For those of you used to the old look, it would probably come as a shock, as it did to me. Our guide said it has been very hard on the grass, the trees, and the gardeners themselves, but clearly the change is here to stay.
On the tour we also watched them changing the flowers in the massive semicircle in front of the Luxembourg Palace. This is a major operation that happens about twice a year. There is an intricate hand-drawn plan on graph paper laying out a repeating pattern of flowering plants (about 20 different varieties). The soil is then prepared, smoothed, and incised with a graph using a long horizontal pole with nails held by adjustable grips. If the pattern does not evenly fill the available space, they smooth the soil again, adjust the position of the nails, and redraw the lines until the pattern fits perfectly. Then a team comes along, dropping the different potted seedlings at their designated positions on the "graph." Finally, these are planted by three or four gardeners kneeling on a horizontal rolling platform about a foot off the ground. When all the seedlings within easy reach have been planted, the gardeners push their platform a few feet further and keep working until the enormous flower bed is filled in.
The Garden is paid for and operated by the Senate, which convenes in the Luxembourg Palace here. They employ a staff of seventy full-time gardeners, with vacancies filled by a tough national competition. The gardeners have their work cut out for them. Besides the lawns, flowers, paths, and trees (which, being French, of course need sculpting), there are dozens of huge palms, dates, and orange trees in planters which need to be moved indoors for the winter, into the Orangerie. There are also greenhouses, which I never knew existed, providing the flower-and-plant arrangements for major governmental events, and an orchard of espaliered heirloom fruit trees propagated and preserved here as part of the patrimoine (French cultural heritage).
All of this is a five minute walk from our apartment. I like to come here in the morning when it opens, at 7:30 am, and join the joggers (though I mostly walk) doing the 2k perimeter circuit. Most of the garden is in a dim green shade then, with fountains plashing, flowering bushes arching over the paths, and the empty lawns, despite the trampling they received yesterday, looking like velvet. The gendarmes (always very much in evidence) stroll the paths two by two, looking like bored but contented couples, and ladies "of a certain age" bring their cat-sized dogs to scurry about on the sandy dirt beneath the flowering chestnut trees. Once I happened upon a Parisian version of a dog fight: two angry women with terriers in their arms, each yelling at the other about how badly brought-up her dog was. It went on and on and on.
Where are the gendarmes when you really need them? Or a gardener with a hose?
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