Themed gardens
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The many experiences of the Garden for Peace have contributed to the extraordinary flowering of the town of Bitche. The exchanges with artists, craftsmen and other professionals have inspired our gardeners to such an extent that there are no limits to the development of their fruitful relationships and their own creations, all of which are tinged with history, travel and emotion.
The Themed gardens form a string of themed ephemeral creations that can be followed through the city and the Garden for Peace. Every year since 2006, a new selection, made up of experiments in flowering or improbable plant associations, has marked out a route in perpetual regeneration.
Between 2019 and 2022, four new creations were added to the Barter Gardens (Cupcake, Naturalist Campsite, Essential Sting and Garden of Possibilities). All the other gardens have also undergone their inevitable seasonal makeover.
For the 2023 edition of the Barter Garden Festival, sixteen creations are in the running. Among them, there are three new creations inspired by this year's theme: sharing.
Don't forget the cooler
Garden no. 1: Before the Garden for Peace
What happened to the erotically conceived garden that was still in this spot last year? Our gardeners just thought otherwise and have given their great appetite an idyllic eating niche! Is picnicking in the garden forbidden for peace? Yes, it is. But no problem! Now, in the context of a real garden, you can also quietly open the cooler. Fantasies are also allowed here! Haven't you dreamt of being allowed to discover something on the unreachable table surface again as a small child?
Under the palm trees, peace
Garden no. 2: In the Garden for Peace
A rainy year has passed, and Bitche secretly longs for some warmth. The gardeners have worked hard to fulfil this wish. Palm trees, warm sand, relaxation, and above all a moment’s respite from the hectic pace of daily life. Blue skies aren’t guaranteed, but our fountains will echo them, in the hope that the sound of the water won’t, too often, bring the rain. The glass discs, created for the town of Bitche in collaboration with the CIAV in 2003, have found a new home here, incorporated into fountains that are themselves the result of a partnership with the parks department of the city of Nancy.
The vegetation has been in place for many years; the palm and banana trees will return to their island, and a vibrant display of flowers will enhance the holiday atmosphere. Visitors will no doubt leave their shoes and their worries behind to make the most of this new space.
Children’s Perspectives
Garden no. 3: In the Garden for Peace
When I was little, I spent my life outdoors. I loved imagining different worlds. An explorer at heart, I knew no bounds. Imagine stepping into a world, my world, the one from when I was a child. Everything was so big, gigantic, immense… It is this experience that we are offering our visitors this year. We’ve thought big: the rocking horse from our childhood, the windmills we used to make out of sheets of paper…
To make our dream a reality, we’ve chosen several elements. First of all, a dry hedge, crafted like a cosy, comforting nest from willow branches. It will provide a real refuge for the insects in our garden. This initiative is also part of an educational programme aimed at young (and older) garden adventurers. You’ll also find structures made from planks with coloured glass elements inserted into them.
Their round shape is reminiscent of the soap bubbles we used to blow as children. As for the flowers, one star will take centre stage... Think back to your bedtime story. Which flower turned the Little Prince’s head? The rose! Let’s hope the gardeners keep a cool head when it arrives...
It's harvest time
Garden no. 4: In the Garden for Peace
This creation, in gestation for several years, replaces or rather extends a garden inspired by childhood memories. Goodbye, La potée lorraine!
The vegetable garden of the "Oma" (grandmother in local dialect) has been revisited as a traditional orchard with, behind the windows of the adjoining house, a kitchen filled with mouth-watering colours and intoxicating fumes...
A new nod to regional craftsmanship, knowledge sharing and conviviality, both nostalgic and committed.
Source & Co
Garden no. 5: In the Garden for Peace
Eureka! Our gardeners have just relegated Archimedes' thrust to the rank of a minor discovery. We know that they have creative virtues and a taste for sustainable development, but this year, a discovery has just made them true scientists. They have just realised that the glacis of the Citadel is a real water tower! Doesn't that make sense? But serious! Our scientists are playing with the earth's gravity to implement multiple eco-ludo-scientific applications to their prodigious discovery. It goes without saying that it is crystal clear that our gardeners have also (and above all ;-) let their legendary imagination run wild... At the spring site, an aquatic experimentation lab has been installed. The water is captured before being stored in the tank-tank. Thanks to the system of communicating vessels, as in New York, it is redistributed randomly in the garden, according to the irrigation needs. That's the only reason, isn't it? Not a drop wasted, but enough to amuse our visitors, who will find it a surprising and refreshing step in their discovery of the well-named Garden for Peace.
Extra-poulations
Garden no. 6: In the Garden for Peace
So much for the naturist campsite – here’s the most gallant stop on the walk! The gardeners at the Jardin pour la Paix are repurposing old giant pots and fences to create a garden-cum-chicken coop where the hens reign supreme.
By recycling yesterday’s scenery, they cultivate today’s spirit: simplicity, respect for life and rustic humour. The hens, queens of this sustainable farmyard, remind us that an empty pot is not a loss, but a promise: that of returning the earth to the earth. Around them, feathery ferns, anemones, sedums, peonies and hydrangeas form a lush carpet where every leaf flutters with the breath of nature. Here, life pecks at poetry, and sustainability takes on the air of a rural ditty: nothing is lost, everything is replanted, everything is dreamed.
Wasgau strolls
Garden no. 7: In the Garden for Peace
At the eastern borders of Lorraine, you reach the end of the lowlands. From the large open landscapes of the Imgau, the paths disappear into the forest-covered Wasgau. Shortly before Bitsch, the horizon seems to break, and just beyond, you catch sight of the citadel. Under the watchful eyes of the fortress, the Northern Vosges rise and the only background appears to be the forest. Huge firs and birches grow in these deep forests. Mushrooms, forest fruits and berries grow and ripen on the banks of lakes and streams. Legends and tales whisper through trees and bushes, and the names of some places will awaken in the memories. In the deep valleys, mysteries seem to pour out of the red sandstone rocks, sometimes eerie, then soon prove to be sensory illusions. The relief of the Wasgau is rich in contrasts, consisting of breathtakingly bizarre rock formations and mysterious patches of forest. Some compare this mountainous region to Little Siberia. In the Garden for Peace, a piece of it is given to your imagination to be conquered by the magic of the forest.
The garden of possibilities
Garden no. 8: In the Garden for Peace
Born from a children's dream, this creation will offer the Garden for Peace a new playful dimension by exploiting the potential and fabulous playground that it inspires in children... A series of skill challenges, sensory discoveries or treasure hunts will allow young and old alike to go on an adventure.
Literature as vaccine
Garden no. 9: In the Garden for Peace
Did you miss a vaccine? This is probably the most important one. In the Garden for Peace, they don't expect you to be diligent, but they do make you immune to ingenuity. On the orders of the pre-green, a lecturodrome has been set up in a fertile environment. Without even making an appointment, on vot'temps'lib.vert, you are offered to treat all ills with words. Whatever their nature, they have been combined with all kinds of dosages: sayings, expressions, poems... and all this in book service. Reading is a self-administered cure, the remedies are vocable. Of all the pamphlets, the only stings are in the bindings. If you notice any literary effects, rather than keep them to yourself, put them down on paper for the benefit of the next initiated.
The freedom huts
Garden no. 10: In the Garden for Peace
The escape of the gardeners
In the undergrowth, you can make out shadows and strange flowers... dangerous like the stories imagined by Tom? With 3 pieces of string in your pocket, free yourself from all constraints and try your luck! Imagine the river, the paths and the fun with the friends... Dream and explore the cabins of Huck, Aunt Polly and Becky! It's a flight to freedom, have fun and do as you please! At the end of the Peace Garden, wander around...
Flaveurs coquines
Garden no. 11: In the city centre, rue Maréchal Foch
Intoxicating and subtle, the mixed fragrance of Magnolias, Roses and Jasmine seems to envelop the elegant women in a protective vapour. Simple rusty silhouettes, they garden, forage and wander. Let them cultivate your interest and blossom your gaze, for nature's complicity in reflecting, turning and blowing will offer you sensual flavours and naughty appearances.
Stadtweiher Park
Garden no. 12: In the city centre, rue Général-de-Gaulle
The former town pond, the Stadtweiher, drained in 1828, is today a park planted with trees which, for longer than the Garden for Peace, has been a green lung at the foot of the historic fortifications of Bitche. The Stadtweiher, bathed by the Horn stream, is criss-crossed by bucolic paths that link the landscaped plots. In any season, between the majestic trees that stand there, the permanent foliage groves and the contemporary sculptures, the park offers a rejuvenating stroll just a stone's throw from the town centre.
The garden of Melanie
Garden no. 13: In the city centre, rue Jean-Jacques Kieffer
Designed by the gardeners of the city of Cahors
On the site of the first hospital in Bitche, the Cahors gardeners pay tribute to the medieval hospital orders. At both ends of the immaculate Jardin de Marie, discover the Hortus des Dominicains with its vegetable gardens made of chestnut plessis and the Herbularium des 7 douleurs presenting a collection of therapeutic plants.
The distribution of the pots
Garden no. 14: In the city centre, rue Colonel-Teyssier
Like musical composers who are never short of inspiration, the gardeners of Bitche fill their scores as they please, drawing from their display of tones. The cloister of the Capuchin fathers lends to these silent flights a range towards majestic clouds. Between the major chords and according to the octaves of colours, abandon yourself to a floral melody that will evoke a musical symbiosis.
Bee’tche
Garden no. 15: Bitche, place Aynié, rue Général-Stuhl
In addition to being, since the dawn of time, the best guarantors of nature's cycles, bees have remained our gardeners' most faithful accomplices. They pollinate their creations to make them useful, aesthetic and militant.
Bee'tche is a bucolic village of beehives. It is ideally surrounded by a luxuriant nature, itself unfortunately surrounded by the bitumen of a roundabout. The fragile balance represented here is symbolically staged in the torment of traffic, left to the indifference of men and their frantic race.
If you yourself deplore going round in circles, Bee'tche will get you out of this vicious circle. Are you afraid of getting dizzy? It is only by playing the record again that you will become aware of the message delivered here. Finally, you will share the virtues of biodiversity!
The Rings of sharing
Garden no. 16: Bitche, roundabout RD662 / RD 620
Competition is a vector of cohesion between individuals in a world. It brings them together to forge projects around common rules. By preparing to compare their performances, the competitors aim to always exceed their personal limits to finally contribute to the development of all. As the theme of the landscape creations is that of sharing, what better opportunity than the upcoming organisation in France of the world's greatest games to celebrate the universal and peaceful values of sport?
At the southern entrance to the town, where those travelling to Bitche and those travelling around it cross, the Rings of Sharing will be interlaced. Symbolising harmony, these rings will also serve as a reminder of the competitions that have earned Bitche its distinctions in terms of heritage, leisure facilities, flowering and commitment to the ecological transition.
