Spring 2025: A Celebration of Rare Plants!

[Press Release] - Published on February 20, 2025 in Press Room

On Sunday, March 23, 2025, until 6 p.m., the Jardin des Plantes in Montpellier will host the^20th edition of “Primavera.” For this occasion, Montpellier’s plant and spring festival returns with lectures and booths dedicated to promoting biodiversity. It’s a chance to learn more in an exceptional setting: France’s oldest botanical garden.

An annual event for botany enthusiasts

Since 2004, the annual Primavera event (open to everyone) has attracted an average of 6,000 to 8,000 visitors. This event will also be an opportunity to talk with professionals at nursery stands featuring, among other things: vegetable plants, herbs, medicinal plants, houseplants, succulents… This year, no fewer than 50 nursery owners from across the south of France, 12 environmental organizations, 1 specialized publisher, and 4 artists will be in attendance.

Schedule of presentations for the day

• 2:00 p.m.: “In Search of Agriculture and Forests of the Past: An Archaeobotanical Investigation” by Jérôme ROS, CNRS research fellow at the Institute of Evolutionary Sciences in Montpellier
• 3:00 p.m.: “Facing Aridity: The Power of Trees” – Moroccan and rural inspirations for agroforestry by Geneviève Michon, ethnobotanist and emeritus research director at IRD (French Research Institute for Development). 
• 4:00 p.m.: “Boissier de Sauvages and Linnaeus: A Thirty-Year Friendship” by Thierry Lavabre-Bertrand, Director Emeritus of the Jardin des Plantes. 

A few words about the Montpellier Botanical Garden

The Jardin des Plantes is the oldest jewel in the Faculty of Medicine’s heritage. The complementary nature of these institutions stems from a shared goal: the pursuit of knowledge, the celebration, and the preservation of life—human life for the Faculty of Medicine, and the plant world for the botanical garden.

In 2022, the Montpellier Botanical Garden was awarded the “Remarkable Garden” designation by the Ministry of Culture, which recognizes gardens and parks—whether public or private—that are of cultural, aesthetic, historical, or botanical interest. In 2022, it also received a grant of 3.4 million euros from the FDJ as part of the heritage initiative led by Stéphane Bern (an initiative to preserve numerous iconic sites in France) to fully restore the Maison de l’Intendance.