You are the creator of several famous vegetable gardens. Crozant, the hortelan of the village, became big.

I started to get to know him when I started to appear in public space. The André Citros Park in Paris was my first large garden, created together with another landscaper and two architects. With this, the notion of “garden in motion” had a great impact. I started writing books, just the first was Le jardin en mouvement. The book provoked a change of view around the profession. Maybe that brought me what you call popularity... I don't know, I don't realize it.

Follow this theory by saying that more than growing, you have to look at the garden.

That's it. However, we must intervene in the holm oaks, because without that the garden would become a jungle. But by doing less, we use less energy against it. In addition, if you pay attention to them, we increase knowledge about the behavior of plants.

You're sowing ideas and notions. For example, to make a vegetable garden is to resist.

When we dedicate ourselves to the garden, we are no longer in relation to the time that is imposed on us. We are not under the pressure of agility. It's right, it's balanced. Nature never stops, and every day we have to understand what living beings invented at night. We do not master the art of nature and what I call autonomy of spirit is essential to understand it.

You mean?

Nature has facts that produce very sophisticated results, but we don't know them. For example, very little is known about communication between plants. However, it would help us understand. I'm against management plans because gardeners become robots that are implementing a maintenance program. There's more and more Maleruski. The evolution of a vegetable garden cannot be thought of as a technocrat.

You call horticulturist the person walking in the garden with pesticides and insecticides?

Rather than horticulturist, I would say he's a field technician. It's the order of cleanliness, but cleanliness has nothing to do with biology. This hygienist and aesthetical vision of the twentieth century has brought with it these dangerous techniques of elimination. They have destroyed life on earth, polluted waters and eliminated species. They're not horticulturists, they think they are because they're in the garden, but they're not! The hortelana takes care of the living, not killing him.

Rather than the vegetable garden, political leaders are in contact with lobbies.

That is the case. Basically, we are not a democracy, the elected ones do not really have power. They think yes, but no, lobbies, big multinationals have the power.

The third landscape is also what you call, as important as the orchard.

These are, for example, areas which have hitherto been devoted to agriculture and which are currently being abandoned. Starting in the 1960s, the landscape changed radically with crop machining. The machines helped, but at the same time they put aside the uncomfortable areas. In these areas a diversity of rocks is being developed by machining and then dissipated with the chemical. In addition, the third landscape also refers to areas where men and women have never gone, or protected spaces. They're awesome treasures.

What do you tell a person who lives in the city?

I would tell you that we're going on some "growing cities." This is a notion given to young landscape artist Remi Janin, who has just written a little book of the same name. The idea is that if citizens accept the character of nature, they will come with nature. Let her fall and then you'll see what they do. In cities there are third landscapes, real treasures in terms of diversity. But you can also imagine the development of food production in those areas.

Optimism for the future?

Looking in the short term not, but in the medium term. In Donostia-San Sebastian, for example, the park of Ulia is threatened by urbanism; it is regrettable, it is a reflection of the fact that the town hall is not aware of the importance of the park. They can carry out pedagogical projects, protecting existing diversity or not using it. Ulia Park symbolizes a global situation. It is situated to the extent of a city, but in the end the same thing is happening in the world: money is the main thing. As long as we continue in this catastrophic economic model, I will not be optimistic. But I think we can change the model.

Local.

Yes, that is, we will do so thanks to local initiatives. The local Basque currency, for example, is interesting. We will do so thanks to those who reject the imposed model and are building a new one. We are strong adapting to the climate, the situation and the local culture.