17. Arbres de vie

Even when they have been felled by deforestation, trees sometimes find a way of coming back to life, when a seed, a root or a shrub latches onto their body, even when emptied of sap, a metaphor for the resilience and potential for repair of landscapes devastated by Man's excesses.

Plants become climbers in order to reach the light and expose as much of the surface of their leaves as possible to the effects of sunshine and fresh air. This result is obtained by consuming a prodigiously small amount of organised matter in comparison with trees, whose massive trunks need to support the considerable weight of their branches.

Effusive plants that coil clockwise as they climb skywards, species that spontaneously twine and cling on with their sensitive petioles, lateral roots or branched or hooked tendrils, foliage that creeps only onto other plants...every living and breeding strategy in nature is at work in this garden. The original aspect of climbing plants, other than the speed at which they grow, is their ability to adapt to the flexibility of their frames and the tensions caused by their movement.

Trees are gradually becoming covered with vegetation again, providing denser and denser shade as the season goes on and the temperatures rise.