Botanical Garden

Garden - Deshaies

The botanical garden was created on a 5-hectare estate that once belonged to well-known French comedian Coluche. At that time, it was beautifully maintained by renowned gardener Michel Gaillard, who purchased the property after the death of his friend in 1991. Gaillard then took on the monumental challenge of transforming the estate into a botanical garden. After years of study, research, and painstaking work with his locally recruited and trained team, Gaillard was able to open the park in 2001. Construction of the park was directed by Michel Gaillard, designer; Didier Rousselle, landscape architect; Richard Routhier, and Daniel Puget. Today the park, with its many flowering plants and animal farm, receives over 120,000 visitors a year (tourists and local residents combined), all of whom come to admire the enormous variety of tropical plants (800 plant species) and varied landscapes, in a harmonious setting featuring walls of water, rushing streams, waterfalls, a flamingo pool, a lily pond, a fern-lined walkway, cacti, palms, bougainvillea, a small aviary, a “macaw village,” and various presentations.