Jardin des Trois Collines
Overview
The Jardin des Trois Collines is a Japanese garden hidden inside École les Semailles in Magny-le-Hongre. French heritage-event listings describe it as a Japanese garden inaugurated in 1995 by the Japanese ambassador and note that it is usually reserved for pupils of the school. A later landscape-project page describes it as the Jardin japonais des Trois Collines, inaugurated in 1996 in the presence of Koïchiro Matsuura, Ambassador of Japan in France.
History
The garden was created as part of the school environment of Les Semailles, the first school group of Magny-le-Hongre. Local history material notes that the school opened in September, and that the Japanese garden, known as the Jardin des trois collines, was inaugurated in 1995 by Japan’s ambassador in Paris, Koïchiro Matsuura. Heritage listings repeat the 1995 date and identify the garden as one of the Japanese gardens recorded internationally.
A later restructuring project by Benjamin Mesnager gives the date as 1996 and describes a public client, a 200 m² school garden and a reworking intended to bring contemplation and serenity to the people viewing it. This suggests either a 1995 inauguration / 1996 completion-record discrepancy, or inconsistent later documentation. For the database, 1995 / 1996 is safest unless a municipal archival source fixes one date.
Design features
The garden is a compact school courtyard / interior-view Japanese garden with miniature hills, rocks, a stream with a bridge, trees including ginkgo, maple and plum, and shrubs such as honeysuckle, Nandina domestica, escallonia, camellia and azalea. The later restructuring retained symbolic elements and existing trees, while reorganising herbaceous and shrub planting around the viewing perspective from the school’s reading area.
Garden elements
Bridges
Stones
Other elements
Current status
Extant Japanese garden within École les Semailles. It is normally reserved for the school community and opens only exceptionally, for example during European Heritage Days.