Valmondois (F) - I garden my village

I garden my village' aims to involve the inhabitants in embellishing their village by planting flowers in public spaces ( pavements, embankments) in front of their dwellings.

They undertake to look after the beds they have arranged with the help of a landscape gardener. This project aims both at beautifying and conviviality by creating links amongst different inhabitants.

In addition to this conviviality and the mobilisation, Valmondois can also reach further objectives :

the creation of a thread by choosing only one sort of flower with different varieties to bring coherence, homogeneity and an easily identifiable identity

demonstrate the heritage of our village and create a sort of showcase

turn Valmondois into a garden village and apply to be classed as a floral village

turn attention to our village, its history, culture and environment

attract tourists to come and discover Valmondois and reinforce its attractiveness and dynamism

open up the possibility of other developments (like a plant festival) and group this plan with other communal projects or ressources (Cittaslow, arts projects)

We can benefit from the experience of other communes, in particular that of Chédigny, which is in many ways very interesting. The mayor of this small commune in the Indre et Loire, a great fan of vintage roses, wanted to embellish his village and find a way to create a feeling of conviviality amongst his inhabitants. He decided to plant a few rosebushes with the help of the rosegrower André Eve.

In the following twelve months, this little village became the 'rose garden of France', a 'garden village' and finally, won an award as 'a remarkable garden'.

Chédigny managed to draw attention to its village : articles and television programmes were devoted to it, and this attracted tourists and artists who came to settle there. They started a rose festival, a blues festival, and more recently, a gastronomy festival, exhibiting all their heritage (AOC zone Ste Maure de Touraine) and the organic produce of their growers.

Chédigny has been able to preserve its identity and has not become over-developed. Shops, artists, growers' syndicates and a few businesses have moved in permanently and involved the villagers.

In Valmondois, for the 'I garden my village' project, we could plant roses. The rosebush is well-suited to our commune and can easily be planted on pavements (even narrow ones), and climb up walls. This programme could begin in the centre of the village and on communal spaces and buildings in order to get started and give the project visibility and colour for all to see.

More foto: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cittaslow/sets/72157649621744335/

Local councillors in charge of the project :

Environment : Gwenaelle Uguen – gwenuguen@gmail.com
Deputy mayor, planning : Pascal Gasquet – p.gasquet@gmail.com