This weekend is the 23rd edition of the Fête des jardins et de l’agriculture urbaine, (the garden and urban agriculture festival) with over 400 free events organised over the two days, and ten of the venues just minutes away from our hotels…

This would be a great time to discover some of Paris’ gardens, some of which are open specially for the event, and all of which have special free activities organised from 2-7pm on Saturday and 11am-7pm Sunday (although you should double-check times for each venue just in case).

Here’s what’s going on in the 5th arrondissement:

— The Square des Arènes-de-Lutèce has a repotting workshop, you can discover the biodiversity space belonging to the Observatoire Parisien de la Biodiversité, there’s role play, plant-growing tips, a game based around gardening tools and guided visits of nearby gardens.

— At the Square Paul Langevin you can learn more about Parisian lumberjacks and tree surgeons, learn more about the different trees to be found in the streets of the capital, and kids will be able to climb from tree to tree!

— In the Jardin des Plantes there’s a lot going on – in the hothouses there are workshops on seed planting and taking cuttings, you can visit their seed store, visit the Botanical and Perspective School, go on a guided visit of the alpine garden, and kid can attend a drawing workshop.

— You can visit the community garden Le nid de l’ortolan and meet the people that tend to it, and

— At the Jardin de Théodore there are guided visits and tasting sessions of herb teas made using the aromatic plants found on-site.

The full programme (in French) can be found at the bottom of this article.

In the 6th arrondissement, four venues await you, two of which are open specially for the Fête des Jardins:

— The Jardin des Pères Maristes and Jardin des Carmes will be specially open on Sunday (from 2-6pm and 10;30am-6pm respectively) for you to visit freely

— At the Square Felix Desruelles there’s a repotting workshop, free gardening advice, a workshop about how to make your own kokedama (Japanese moss ball with plants), and kids can learn how to manufacture their own seed bombs.

— And let’s not forget the beautiful Jardin du Luxembourg which is offering free guided visits on Saturday (2pm & 4.15pm) and Sunday (10.30am, 2pm & 4.15pm).

Of course there’s a lot more going on all over town, and indeed in the nearby suburbs – all in all, 80 venues await you! The full programme (in French) can be consulted at the bottom of this article.

The 2019 Fête des Jardins is on all over Paris on 14th & 15th September 2019

Website: here

Official blog: blogs.paris.fr/casepasseaujardin

To check out the full programme, simply click the ‘fullscreen’ button at the bottom right of the image below.