Eden: The Plant Festival at Château de La Roche-Guyon in 2026, Val-d'Oise — in pictures

The Eden Plant Festival delivered on its promises on May 2 and 3, 2026, at the Château de La Roche-Guyon, in the Val-d'Oise (95), just about an hour from Paris. While a few thunderstorm risks had some fearing the worst early in the morning, the sky stayed relatively cooperative, and a sizable crowd of curious visitors and plant enthusiasts explored the estate all weekend, between chalk cliffs and the meander of the Seine.

After more than thirty years under the banner Plantes Plaisirs Passions, founded in 1994 by the gardener and author Noémie Vialard, the Château de La Roche-Guyon Plant Festival is changing its name and format. With Eden, the message is clear: really refocus the event on the plant world. Not just an exhibition-sales of plants among others, but a space where the garden becomes the main topic, in all its forms. The nursery producers chosen by the château team all share a commitment to the quality of plants and to respecting natural cycles. Perennials, annuals, ornamental trees and shrubs, grasses, bulbs, ferns: the range was broad, and the stands were genuinely well stocked.

The emphasis on the garden's revival is well placed. The Potager-fruitier, founded in 1697 and redesigned in the 18th century by the Duchess of Enville, was named a Remarkable Garden in 2011 and is farmed under organic farming. It was highlighted here as well. It is the largest kitchen garden in Île-de-France after the King’s at Versailles, and you can tell: four hectares where the château’s gardeners were on hand all weekend to chat with visitors, seasoned hobbyists and absolute beginners alike. We appreciated this straightforward, no-nonsense sharing of knowledge, which leaves you walking away with pots full of plants and a fresh wave of gardening ambition.

• To be read
• This week's top picks in Paris and Île-de-France, July 20–26, 2026.

The godmother and godfather of Eden also embodied that deep-rooted connection to the plant world. Noémie Vialard, who created the festival in 1994 and ran it as curator until 2008, led a workshop on the theme Eat the Garden, inviting visitors to rediscover the edible riches of the vegetable patch. By her side, botanist Patrick Blanc, the inventor of the famous Living Wall, gave a talk about the world’s most beautiful plants. A link to the venue that is certainly intentional: in 2002, Patrick Blanc had created a Vegetable Cavern in the arches of the château’s former stables, later removed for renovations. A small slice of local history that few visitors know, and one we found quite charming to recount on site.

The workshops had certainly been scaled back due to storm risks, but the sheltered talks, the flash tours of the Fruit-and-Kitchen Garden, and the itinerant brass band more than made up for it. We also took advantage of the weekend to wander through the castle rooms, where the artist Camille Chastang had already set up her floral-tinged drawings and ceramics as part of her in situ creation residency in situ. Her exhibition Menus plaisirs, designed especially for this first Eden edition, sat well in these rooms steeped in history. The title also echoes the motto of the La Rochefoucauld family, painted on the beams of the guardroom: It's my pleasure. At the end of the tour, an original wallpaper titled Femmage!, imagined in tribute to the Duchess of Enville, will remain visible at the château until 2030.

Eden was only the kickoff for the château, which this summer presses ahead with a new cultural momentum. The workshop Quand même (Camille Clerc, James Bouquard and Pierre-Yves Péré) will soon install the Proscenium at the heart of the Potager-fruitier: a contemporary folly in chalk and flint, a semi-circular rotunda inspired by 18th-century garden temples, with a circular stage and wooden tiers, oriented toward the château and facing the Seine, accessible until 2030.

From June 20 to November 1, the exhibition Fauna Fabulosa by Yoshikazu Goulven Le Maître will take over the Orangerie with its animal sculptures that fuse baroque flair with punk edge. For families, a children's author hosted in residence over the summer will craft a picture book in which a castle takes center stage, copies of which will be given to every child visitor.

The castle is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (admission €9.50; free for children under 6), in La Roche-Guyon, the only village in Île-de-France to bear the Plus Beaux Villages de France label, in the heart of the Parc naturel régional du Vexin français.

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