Versailles has an "environmental gardener"?

Apparently so, according to this in the Washington Post.  He's ended the traditional spraying regime, made peace with aphids, and replaced endless rows of single-species trees with a biodiverse mix.   Wow.  Gardening has changed and there's no turning back.

Comments

[suzq]

And according to Nova's special on colony collapse disorder, they keep bees on top of the Louvre. The beekeeper there says that his bees are healthier than those on farms because Paris does not spray pesticides in its parks.

[Reading Dirt]

I've seen Versailles and walked and walked and walked through the park and still didn't see it all. I admire anyone who can keep that enormous park looking beautiful. As for sprays, well, at the time the garden were laid out back in the days of the various Louis', they didn't use sprays, either. But then again, they had a vast source of cheap labor to draw upon to keep the place spiffing.

[DJ Monet]

I must admit, when I saw the headline, my mind was filled with disbelief because of how rigid I found the Gardens at Versailles (sans the area where Marie played, which is fantastic). But a couple of quotes from the article:

"What's important is to keep the spirit and the visual aspects," Baraton said.

That's so totally key. -keep your eye on the ball- right?

" I look for plants that resemble older ones, or some that can be pruned like the ones from back then."

And some practical advice.

Just when I'm convinced the media is cycling out the 3rd Environmental Wave fad, I realize that fad or no fad, this time around the integration is going deep. Which makes me think this time around, "the environment" won't be cycled through the news media machine as happened in the late 80's/early 90's (the 2nd Environmental Wave, if you count the 70's Earth Day era as the 1st or 'birth' of the modern environmental movement),