In the gardens of Versailles, a new revolution
Landscaper sees climate for change
VERSAILLES, France - Alain Baraton is an untraditional gardener in perhaps the most traditional garden on the planet.
He is the keeper of the Gardens of Versailles - with hundreds of acres of flower beds as meticulously manicured as a beauty queen's nails and trees so ancient they bore witness to the French Revolution.
Today, Baraton is leading another revolution on the 2,100-acre estate. Rather than fretting over the climate change that is robbing the chestnut trees of their fall colors and killing the pine trees of Louis XIV's reign, Baraton is seizing shifting weather patterns as a chance to transform gardening across France.
Take the bug problem. Over the last few years, French winters have become too warm to kill off the greedy insects that love to dine on Versailles' 18,500 carefully pruned chestnut trees. After several years of battling the bugs, Baraton stopped spraying them with insecticides.
Instead, he left them in the bark to grow fat and juicy.
"Now, in spring, more birds are coming back," declared Baraton, a soft-spoken man with eyebrows as bushy as the caterpillars that inhabit his flower beds. "It's helping the balance of the gardens."
Baraton is using his lofty perch as the most enviable gardener in France to preach the gospel of bio-gardening to a cultivation-crazed society. According to estimates by Promojardin, an association that promotes gardening as a hobby, 89 percent of all French people dabble with plants.
On his radio program, his television show and in his ninth gardening book, Baraton urges home gardeners to follow his lead from the lavish grounds of Versailles.
"For many children, aphids are fabulous monsters," writes Baraton, 50. "It would be a shame to destroy this extraordinary life by inconsiderate use of insecticide."
He is also changing the gardening style of centuries of French royalty.
"What's important is to keep the spirit and the visual aspects," Baraton said. "I look for plants that resemble older ones, or some that can be pruned like the ones from back then."
He's altered the practice of planting row upon clipped row of the same species of trees. "Nowadays, we vary the species of trees - beech, hawthorn, poplar, chestnut - to prevent major losses in case of a disease affecting one type of tree," he said.
And he downright frowns on some of the practices of various bygone Versailles royals.
In times past, palace residents sent ships around the world to collect exotic plants and trees for the estate. One king even imported coffee bean plants for growing and grinding his own brew.
Baraton recommends sticking to native flora. He lashes out at gardeners who would buy a century-old olive tree as pillaging natural resources.
As a youngster, Baraton's love of gardening earned him an unpleasant nickname from his siblings - the French word for cow dung. But in 30 years, he rose from a teenager collecting parking fees from Versailles visitors to the chief of the entire gardening operation with its 100-member staff.
Now, even business moguls with mansions of their own show a little jealousy. "It's a nice feeling to have a billionaire envy you," he said.
