Human Flower Project
Le Roi de Deadheading
Marie de Medici may have ordered the Luxembourg Palace built, but thirty gardeners sweat to keep the grounds gorgeous.
Sylvain Piperno gestures from the main parterre to
other reaches of the huge Luxembourg Garden that he
and thirty other full time gardeners, keep looking royally
beautiful.
Photo: Bill Bishop
The Parterres of the Luxembourg Garden in Paris are bright as jewels in Louis XIV’s crown: dahlias, coxcomb, geraniums, begonias, and more, backed with tall stands of white nicotina and pink and white cleome. Every bloom we saw in this huge garden (covering 24 hectares) was stout and bright.
If you think plants just grow that way, you should have seen Sylvain Piperno out methodically trimming the edge of the flower bed this humid and hot September day. He worked slowly along with a pair of large clippers, tossing each trimming carefully into a large plastic bucket. In the half hour or so we watched, he probably worked around about a twentieth of the huge oval.
Taking a short break, M. Piperno told us he’s worked here at the Luxembourg Garden for 18 years, first at its Orangerie but in more recent years taking charge of these beautiful geometric beds behind the palace. July and August, he says, are the most strenuous months of the years, requiring constant work to stay ahead of the vigorous plants and keep them at full tilt bloom. He says there are 30 gardeners on staff and another 40 who “do paperwork.” We noticed that there also were gendarmes calmly stationed beside some of the flower beds. Now that’s terrific community policing!
While the rest of the world knows better—slathering on the sunblock—the crowds at this beloved Paris park were stretching out their legs and tossing their heads back, as we used to say, “laying out,” for their bains de soleil. Very likely, though, all that preening was just pretext, to hang out here and savor M. Piperno & company’s handiwork.
Those bright geraniums alone are enough to bring freckles out on your nose.