Spearheaded by the French Ministry of Culture, this cultural and festive event benefits from the support of numerous partners, highlighting a collective drive to celebrate the art of gardens and heritage.

Stone gardens, Garden stones

Each year has its own theme, and the one for 2025 takes us to Chinese gardens, where standing stones played, and still play, an important role. The imaginary world of Asian stone gardens continues to infuse dry gardens in Japan and many other gardens around the world. These Far Eastern “standing stones” had a fundamental influence on the fashion for rocks in picturesque gardens in the 18th century. Just as ruins (false ruins) had their moment of glory in these same gardens throughout Europe, not forgetting caves.

Stone is also present in our gardens through statuary and furniture.
Rockwork, also known as rustication, is an ancient technique involving the use of cement, and more recently concrete, to create structures or objects imitating wood. Very much in vogue in the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the fashion for rock gardens and mountain landscapes, artificial cement became the emblematic material of French savoir-faire, used in Alphand's Parisian parks and at world's fairs.

The colors of sand and gravel for pathways and floors, calades and the reuse of quarries also evoke the mineral in gardens.
Stone can also play a technical role when it is used to circulate water, for drainage or for ornamental purposes in the form of canals or basins; skilfully applied, it can be used to create terraces for nursery or pleasure gardens.

The ENS de Lyon Garden

The garden designed by Gilles Clément is made up of 4 parts: three sign gardens and the boulingrin, the furrow around which the garden is organized. Its meridian orientation is inspired by planetary geography, but also by local geography, in relation to the orientation of the Rhône and prevailing winds.

An integral part of the ENS de Lyon garden, the Jardins des Signes are nonetheless totally different in style, and the plants encountered here are not found elsewhere.The Jardins des Signes are an invitation to take a different look at the plant world and the relationships we maintain with it. There are 3 gardens, covering the range of phenological signs (the Garden of Times), morphological signs (the Garden of Forms) and relational signs (the Garden of Communication).

• The Garden of Time: phenological signs: massive, fleeting blooms of bulbous plants (scillas, alders, crinuums, schizostylis) punctually express the transition to other seasons.
• The Garden of Shapes: morphological signs. Its shapes, textures and contrasts reflect the extreme diversity of vegetative apparatus, bearing witness to phylogenesis and adaptive behavior.
• The Garden of Communication: relational signs. Exchanges between the plant and animal kingdoms, flowerings, far from being purely ornamental, are at the heart of the entomofauna's ecological system.

Discover the book co-authored by Paul Arnould, David Gauthier, Yves-François Le Lay and Michel Salmeron 
Preface by Gilles Clément, Olivier Faron     http://catalogue-editions.ens-lyon.fr/fr/livre/?GCOI=29021100623500

Since 2012, the ENS de Lyon has been opening its magnificent garden designed by Gilles Clément.
“The ENS de Lyon garden is not just a composed space where shapes, colors, textures and perspectives express themselves, it's a place of life where protected and multiple diversity engages the minds and bodies of those who care for it and those who use it. It's about both balance and futures.” - Gilles Clément: La Vallée, April 23, 2011. (Translated from French)

The ENS de Lyon garden is a lively garden! Animated by its gardeners, animated by the children who visit it, animated each year by the Rendez-vous aux jardins event, animated by cultural actions, animated by scientific experiments... The ENS de Lyon garden is open to the outside world through cultural and artistic events open to all. It is also the focus of artistic and educational research.

Science in the garden: The garden is also an object of study, particularly its flora and fauna. As part of the Rendez-vous aux jardins event, scientific workshops are added to the garden tours. 

A lively garden awaits school children and the general public on June 6 and 7.