The Garden of Migrations
Agence APS landscape architects · 2013
Between the walls of the fort a garden climbs the terraces in dry stone beds full of the smells of the south: thyme, rosemary, sage, lavender, cistus, wild olive, fig, pomegranate, vine and myrtle. There is no lawn and almost no watering. The plants are arranged in about fifteen small plots, each telling a story of how a species travelled around the Mediterranean, carried by Phoenician traders, Roman soldiers, Arab botanists or monks, and reached the hills around Marseille. A garden of migrations, then, in a city built by migrants.
The landscape architects of the APS agency chose plants that survive drought, salt wind and thin soil, exactly the conditions of the garrigue outside the city, and they laid the beds in the low walls of the fort so that the stones store the day's heat. Look for the plot of aromatic herbs beside the Corps de Garde, the little orchard of Mediterranean fruit trees, the bed of plants brought from the Americas such as prickly pear and agave, and the tiny vegetable garden that recreates what a soldier might have grown on the ramparts. Labels in French give the origin of each plant.
The garden opened with the museum in twenty thirteen and has grown into the walls as if it had always been there. It is free to walk through, and in May and June, when the sage and the cistus are in flower and the bees are working, it is one of the loveliest corners of Marseille. Take the shaded benches under the fig trees on a hot afternoon and listen to the harbour below.
Did You Know? The garden is not watered in summer; every plant was chosen to survive the same drought as the hills around the city.
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