The strange gardens of Bouknadel. The story of French love with Morocco

The Wonder Gardens are located in Sidi Bouknadel, an agricultural center that currently has some industrial units, and includes several workshops for cutting and trimming stones used in construction, and it is on the national road axis linking the cities of Rabat and Kenitra, where it is only about 12 km from the city of Salé.

Before this place was a wonderful garden, it was originally a space and nursery for the production of plants that were then in demand in the markets outside Morocco, and thus it is a profitable project run by a French man with great craftsmanship gained from his experience with plants through his study of their environments, and his trips in search of their species around the globe.

The idea is the dream and its owner

The lush gardens of Sidi Bouknadel derived their name from the rare plant variety that belongs to different regions of the world, where the number of species exceeded 1500 plants varying in terms of type, type, color and shape, and gained their strangeness from the unique types of birds that adorn their parts, and the funny fish and reptiles that fill their ponds, so this space has become a natural painting of art, which is covered by trees, plants and water basins, interspersed with crossings and bridges that facilitate the visitor to discover this joyful world in all its colors and spectra that delight the beholders.

The creation of these wonderful gardens dates back to Marcel François, a French gardener, born in Paris on the fifth of February 1900, and received his training at the National School of Horticulture in Versailles, he was able to discover Morocco at the beginning of his third decade of life when he arrived in the framework of military service, where he was attached to the Meteorological Department.

In 1930, Marcel François set up a project for the production of offshoots of tropical plants for aquariums in the town of Argenteuil in the northwestern suburb of Paris, and these plant species, by virtue of their quality, required him to create glass warmers to ensure the right climate for their cultivation in good conditions. Soon after he worked tirelessly to develop his project, the Second Great War broke out and its bombs wreaked havoc on what he had built, halting his ambitions for a while.

Marcel François was forced to leave his native land due to the repercussions of the war, which necessitated him to search for a wider field to achieve his dream and re-establish his project again after the losses he suffered, as the man used to travel, as he visited many countries, and learned about their climate and the types of plants that they have.

When the war ended, he decided to resume production of this type of tropical plant, this time in a geographically and climatic area. In this regard, he chose Morocco as a suitable space to realize his ambitious idea.

In 1949, he acquired an open land of about four hectares in the town of Sidi Bouknadel, a land known for its climate, suitable for his own gardening.

Mohammed V visits the Wonder Garden

Marcel François settled in Morocco with his youngest daughter "Doniz", and he initially resided temporarily in a small barn that was prepared for pigs, so he slept in a narrow room and his youngest nineteen-year-old daughter in another and took the third as a kitchen, then he began to establish his own house on the land he acquired, determined to achieve his dream that he had had for years, which is to own and prepare a garden that includes all that is strange and strange from plants that belong to homelands and fields Varying geography.

The idea was initially to set up a nursery to produce shoots of all kinds of plants and export them to Argontoy for sale, and his eldest daughter, Genoviev, and his brother-in-law were in charge of this process.

Marcel was engaged in working too hard and enthusiastically, using Moroccan workers to do major works, and the country's mild climate helped him to conduct scientific experiments on the various varieties of plants he had accessed. This ambitious architect was able to create a creatively harmonious garden, in which rare plants from different environments of the globe coexisted.

Wanting to give the place a kind of integration and harmony, he brought to it a variety of species, birds, reptiles and fish, where he excelled in building nests, burrows and water ponds to house these creatures that filled the place with joy and pleasure.

Marcel opened his wondrous gardens to visitors after a decade of painstaking work of planting, organizing and coordinating the smallest details, and this place was visited in 1959 by Sultan Mehmed V, who applauded this creative natural work of art.

Beginning in 1961, these natural works of art were opened to the public looking to learn about their exotic plants.

Marcel has been working hard and hard, driven by a sweeping ambition to achieve what he aspired to, and with a great desire for more profit generated by the project, and he also sought to share his experience with some scientific institutions by framing some courses in ecology at Mohammed V University in Rabat in the specialization "Metabiology".

However, by 1973, the situation had changed nationwide, with the implementation of a "Moroccanization policy" approach in post-independence Morocco under which the wondrous gardens were nationalized, forcing their transformation from private property to public property belonging to the State, where they were attached to the Ministry of Agriculture.

These radical measures did not fail in Marcel's support, where he continued his work at the same pace, and was not deterred by the deterioration of his health and poor conditions in 1981, which kept him from working, so he decided in 1984 to return to France, where he joined his daughter "Doniz" in the town of "Le Var", to take care of him after he reached the age of Atia.

On November 20, 1999, Marcel François died at the age of 99 after a life rich in personal experience to realize the dream he left us in reality in the form of unique gardens that won the admiration of all who visited.

The Mohammed VI Foundation adopts the Wonder Gardens

The house that Marcel used to live in the strange gardens, after his departure from the world, became a museum that contains some of his things that he was more in contact with, such as his crutches that he used to lean on during his work or wandering in the corners of the garden, in addition to the boxes of some medicines that he used to take in the last years of his life, and his house also included scraps from some of what he wrote or wrote about him, in addition to some paintings that he was fond of, and some photographs that he took himself for scenes that caught his attention.

In addition, a model created by its owner to show renewable energy sources, solar, wind, water and vitality, was displayed in this small museum, thus forming Marcel's house, with its antiques and personal remains, an important documentary source chronicling the emergence and growth of the wonderful gardens of Bouknadel and their development, and a record full of official visits, individually and collectively, that frequented the place at different periods of time.

Marcel's departure left a great void in the tasks of running the strange gardens, as they became under the tutelage of the Ministry of the Interior, so unqualified people were appointed to supervise them and did not have enough experience to take care of their plants, birds, reptiles and fish, so this natural landmark suffered from atrophy that paralyzed some of its parts, as if it mourned the loss of Marcel, who cared for it with great passion and love and pledged it with unparalleled enthusiasm.

The wonderful gardens suffered during this period from inactivity as a result of the neglect that followed them, which greatly affected their various natural components, so there was no longer care for them as in the past, so their system was disrupted and their situation deteriorated, as their plants were subjected to drought, which led to the annihilation of many of them, and their basins and paths were ruined and waste accumulated, and they became a destination for the homeless and loafers took shelter from them, which led to insecurity.

The effects of this dire situation, which turned against it, led to the fate of some of its civil society enthusiasts, who sounded the alarm and denounced the situation has become deplorable. The local authorities of the city of Salé responded to these calls, closing them down in 2000, so that what could be saved from their components could be saved when that time could be saved.

The Mohammed VI Foundation for Environmental Protection adopted the importance of these wonderful gardens, and there was a determination to save them from loss, as a plan was developed to rescue more than 620 species of plants that resisted the factors of extinction, followed by a program to reclaim them and restore the damaged facilities.

In this regard, the Foundation sought to acquire these gardens by signing a partnership agreement with the Ministry of Interior, which hereby waived them.

The garden comes to life again

The Mohammed VI Foundation for Environmental Protection began the process of repairing and rehabilitating the Wonder Gardens in 2002, and many private and public institutions were involved in this major project, and the scientific expertise of the Hassan II Institute of Agriculture and Veterinary Science, and the Ministry of Culture responded to the request made by the "Association of Friends of the Wonder Gardens of Bouknadel", founded in 1998, to classify these gardens as a national natural heritage in 2003. Two years later, UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site, coinciding with the reopening of its doors to visitors.

The supervisors of the reclamation of the wondrous gardens were keen to preserve as much as possible the shape created by its creator Marcel François, which enabled the maintenance of its basic features, to which complementary elements were added that revealed its elegance, beauty and natural attractiveness, while evoking the desire of its founder, who

"He had a beautiful dream that he was able to achieve by creating wondrous gardens that housed a diverse spectrum of the world's plants that he brought from all horizons."

A number of steps have been taken in the restoration and repair process, the most important of which is the increase in the area of the park by acquiring a land adjacent to it with an area of three hectares, to establish a nursery for Moroccan plants that have been brought from various regions of the country, to introduce them and display them to visitors, as well as the establishment of a pedagogical farm prepared for what is educational, in addition to a media library, and some recreational facilities such as a café, restaurant and children's play area.

Despite these modifications, which did not touch the essence of the place, as designed by its owner, the purpose of all this was to revive it and ensure that it continued to perform its mission well.

Coexistence of the world's flora

The wonderful gardens were divided into harmonious and harmonious wings with each other, where the first wing was dedicated to reception, which consists of a spacious space for entertainment, rest and recreation, while the second wing was built with a nursery for the production of offshoots that are used to succeed, renew and graft plants that need it, whether of the type brought from around the world or belonging to the Moroccan environment, or varieties directed to marketing internally and externally.

As for the third and last wing, which is the heart of this natural masterpiece, it is what is known as the garden pavilion, what distinguishes it is the originality and uniqueness that characterize it, whether in terms of its natural components or its engineering design, it includes three thematic types, the first concerns natural gardens, which is a microcosm of global plant environments that provided them with conditions similar to their original environment, and from the habitats of these plants we find Congo, Gabon, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Antilles, Caribbean, Polynesia, the United States of America, South Asia and others.

The second is for cultural gardens, a type that reflects different cultural patterns, and in this category we find the Andalusian Garden with its Ibero-Andalusian architectural style, where it was provided with a creative irrigation system, and its sides were filled with flowers and roses of different colors and shapes, and the gardens of China and Japan with their wonderful plants and flowers and their water ponds dedicated to the sacred lotus flower, which has its symbolism in the memory of those Asian peoples.

This type of cultural park has reflected customs and traditions rooted in the history of the civilizations to which it belongs, as evidenced by the methods of dealing with them in coordination and organization that reflect the sophistication and good taste that man has attained in coexistence with the diverse vegetation provided by nature.

The third space was dedicated to the so-called educational gardens, this field was prepared to carry out complementary tasks with the previous two types of gardens, as its educational awareness role is mainly directed to visitors who are interested in curiosity and knowledge, and this pavilion consists of an aquarium that includes a variety of fish that have different origins, in addition to a place dedicated to housing different types of reptiles or brought from separate habitats, in addition to creating a special space for bird species brought from many countries from five continents.