The Garden of Springs – Trial Garden - oise

Every landscape architect must also be a gardener. Having the opportunity to work with a garden provides an essential source of knowledge for understanding how plants can be used meaningfully in landscape projects. Wagon’s trial garden is conceived as a full-fledged working tool, a place for long-term experimentation with plants and plant associations.

This garden allows us to observe, over several years, the real behaviour of plants: their growth patterns, their adaptation to soil and climate, their water needs, their resistance to disease, and their interactions with other species. Nothing can replace direct experience and time. Planting a species, caring for it, and watching how it evolves through the seasons and over many years is the most reliable way to understand its dynamics and potential.

This practice, carried out consistently over time, has enabled us to identify what we call our “companion plants”. These are plants that are easy to live with, generous in form and growth, low-maintenance, and rarely affected by disease. They are resilient species, capable of thriving in demanding conditions. Today, they form the backbone of the plant palettes used in the gardens and landscapes we design.

The trial garden is therefore a place of continuous learning, where gardening informs design, and where hands-on experience with living systems guides a pragmatic, sensitive and sustainable approach to landscape practice.