ISU Summer Days 2024: from production to show gardens

The International Perennial Union offered the almost 60 participants of the Summer Days from August 11-15 in Angers, France, a very diverse program. Perennial experts from 12 European countries and the USA met there from variously structured companies and enjoyed the professional exchange as well as the typical local culture.

Perennial plant growers and users experienced impressive production companies and gardens around Angers. Customers can find over 2,400 species and varieties at the Pèpiniere Lepage 'Val de Loire', Les Ponts-de-Cé, 80% of which are home-grown. Christian Crépin showed his colleagues around the 25-hectare nursery with its automated production chain. At the perennial nursery Barrault, La Possonniére, one of the two managing directors Veronique Barrault and her employees presented the production areas for 11 million perennials for garden centers, landscape gardeners and municipalities in various pot sizes on 33 ha. On the other hand, Bella and David Gordon showed their concepts for greening dry sites on 2.5 ha at the Plantagenet perennial nursery in Doué-en-Anjou. A fantastic show garden and an exciting range of perennials as well as the intensive professional exchange regarding urban greening were of great interest to the participants.

The perennial gardeners experienced artistic plant interpretations in the largest garden exhibition in France in Chaumont sur Loire. From near-natural plant communities to very abstract installations were shown, with sheep's wool or even glass-like mulch. Wineries, Terra Botanica and the exciting plantings in the city of Angers itself also met with a very positive response.

In the botanical garden of the city of Angers, the almost 60 participants wore the ISU Summer Days 2024 T-shirt. (Foto: ISU/Banse)

Bella and David Gordon have been cultivating drought-tolerant plants in the hot and dry climate of the Loire Valley for over 25 years. They also design gardens, advise and teach for the public sector. Their show garden conveys their expertise and passion. (Foto: ISU/Banse)

Experimental plantings were seen by visitors to the Chaumont Sur Loire garden festival in France. (Foto: ISU/Banse)