Garden of Peace
Terres de Promesses

Once a site of confrontation and destruction, now a place of remembrance and celebration of peace, the Navarin Farm monument-osuary (51) is part of the shared history of France and the United States. This history, as old as the United States itself, is marked by mutual aid between the two countries and the defense of common values of tolerance and freedom.

The Land of Promise garden or Les Terres de Promesses evokes the time needed to rebuild and the importance of exchanges to achieve this.

Inspired by the marks left on the landscape by the war, and in particular the front line dug by the soldiers, the garden is composed of embankments separated in the middle and stone slabs placed as links between them. The visitor can thus circulate between these spaces and settle on the seats located at the edge of the slope. Moreover, while during the war, the trench was often the only horizon for the soldier, the garden symbolically opens it up to the surrounding landscape in order to offer new perspectives.

Each slope has its own identity, its own community of plants which, over time, will move, mix and cohabit with the other plants, thus enriching the plant compositions. Among the plants chosen, some come from the United States. Others grow only in Europe. However, they are all acclimatized to the sometimes harsh conditions of the site and adapted to dry land.

The composition of the garden, which includes a wide variety of ground cover plants, contributes to its ecological quality and sustainability. It thus illustrates the understanding and resilience that are necessary for both the garden and the people to flourish and fulfill all their promises.