La Plantelière

Arpajon-sur-Cère, France, France

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La Plantelière is a 7-hectare arboretum and natural garden located at La Pépinière, Route de Labrousse, 15130 Arpajon-sur-Cère in the Cantal department of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France, near Aurillac.

This concentrated space of flora and fauna, developed since 1993 with contributions from the ONF (National Forestry Office), Aurillac District, and Maison des Volcans d'Auvergne, features numerous thematic gardens including a smell garden with lavender, jasmine, and melissa, a taste garden with raspberries and gentian, a honey garden with a bee farm and melliferous meadow, a "good God's garden" with medicinal plants like sage and saly, and a "devil's garden" with toxic plants like holly and digitalis.

The site is home to a great variety of trees including maples, conifers, fruit trees (wild cherry, apple, walnut, mulberry, chestnut, plum), ashes, willows, thuyas, beeches, and exotic species like the Virginia tulip tree, along with flowering meadows with wild flowers, a pond, a vegetable hedge labyrinth, an exotic space, a vegetable garden, a compost area, and two orchards (a forms orchard with various pruning shapes and a conservation orchard with different apple varieties).

All gardening and maintenance at La Plantelière is done without pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers, showcasing various tested and presented gardening techniques, and the site offers three orientation paths ("little explorer," "nurseryman," and "arpenteur") with explanatory panels for self-guided visits.