2015 edition
Extraordinary gardens, collector's gardens

This year the Chaumont-sur-Loire International Garden Festival is turning its attention to green heritage and the distinctive, creative spirit of plants, with the hope of thrilling visitors and giving credit and support to those who devote their life and pour their energy into conserving, saving and multiplying altogether extraordinary plant curiosities. This is why the 2015 edition is devoted to “Collectors' gardens”.

All collectors of artefacts, works or rare plants find themselves swept up by the excitement of their all-consuming passion. To collect is to gather things that other people don't have, to love what is precious, unique and original. It also involves seeking out the diverse, multiple and different, endlessly compiling treasures, finds and wonders. Collectors are a particular breed with a healthy taste for the rare and happily show off the fruit of their fervent searches. Well familiar in the art world, this zealous display of possession is not entirely absent from the plant world - quite the opposite.

Come to the 2015 International Garden Festival, and you'll discover extraordinary gardens, collectors' gardens and cabinets of plant curiosities. These promise to be brimming with plants that have never, or seldom, been seen before, laid out in a contemporary, unexpected and surprising manner and making use of innovative, exceptional and unusual materials, designs and displays. Unique and miles from the beaten track, these demanding gardens blossom with uncommon plants and flowers whose whereabouts are believed to be unknown and which stand out as much by their uniqueness as by the combinations and displays dreamt up by the designers.