How rewilding is transforming Paris streets and parks

In keeping with global trends, Paris’ parks and gardens are increasingly allowing space for spontaneous self-sowing. Pesticide use has been eliminated, the frequency of lawn mowing reduced and irrigation levels cut. Fallen dead leaves are being left below shrubs and trees to provide habitat for wildlife and mulch the soil.

There are beehives on roofs, compost bays by the Seine and an abundance of new trees in the streets. Even relatively formal spreads like Parc Monceau in the elegant 8th arrondissement now sport a haie seche, or dry hedge, of dead plant material that has been woven together to provide refuge to hedgehogs, bees, butterflies and other animals.

In open spaces across the city, including high-profile ones a stone’s throw from the National Assembly, there are fenced-off areas devoted to poppies, cornflowers, mallow, daisies and long Mediterranean grasses. Allowed to live out their entire life cycle, these wild-looking carpets attract birds, insects and other fauna.

But for the full reclaimed-by-nature experience, the places to head for are the sections of disused railway line that have been opening to the public since 2007. For more than a century, this circular Petite Ceinture transported passengers and freight around the capital, but now plants and pedestrians have been allowed to take over parts of it.

The most atmospheric portions are filled with self-seeded flowers and runaway climbers creating a laid-back mood that draws a wide range of visitors. One section by the Porte de Clignancourt, is devoted to a pop-up secondhand clothing market on the day I visit. An 11-year-old urban farm with chickens and raised vegetable beds stretches along one side. Another particularly free-form section in Menilmontant has daybeds where people lie in the sun.

But this track wasn’t the first piece of railway infrastructure turned into public green space in Paris. In 1993, 16 years before the opening of the High Line on elevated rail track in New York, the five-kilometre-long Coulee Verte Rene-Dumont was established atop a 19th-century railway viaduct in the 12th arrondissement.

While this verdant and immaculately tended garden is now so popular that it has signs warning joggers to mind pedestrians, the cost of the endeavour initially divided opinion.

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In Paris, landscape designers have long challenged expectations. When the hilly Parc des Buttes-Chaumont opened on an old quarry and rubbish tip in the 19th arrondissement in 1867, it made a then unheard of feature of concrete. The newly developed material was made to look like hanging stalactites, wooden branches and the steep cliffs along the coast of Normandy.

While the gypsum base for much of this concrete has deteriorated to the point that some sections are currently closed to the public, other areas are experiencing a new lease of plant life thanks to the concerted push to increase biodiversity. About 3 million people visit every year. In Paris, the parks and gardens are animated in every way.