The Dordogne department (24) is rich in gardens that are worth a visit and at the invitation of the Departmental Tourism Committee, the NewsJardinTV team has produced several reports around the famous little town of Sarlat. Our stop today is the exotic garden of La Roque Gageac, a place that is both surprising and enchanting, which the editor-in-chief of NewsJardinTV, Patrick Mioulane, will show you around, in the company of Jacqueline Magnanou, the president of the association of the gardens of La Roque Gageac. Benefiting from a privileged microclimate due to the presence of a 120 m high limestone cliff overlooking the bed of the Dordogne, La Roque Gageac is rightly classified among the most beautiful villages in France. The garden was created by Gérard Dorin († 2014) in the second half of the 1960s. Passionate about nature, botany and travel, he managed to grow in the heart of Périgord: palm trees, banana trees, bougainvillea, citrus fruits, pomegranates, oleanders and other exotic plants. The location is climatically favoured because it is sheltered from the prevailing winds and the rock, oriented north/south, stores heat during the day and releases it during the night, which creates a microclimate conducive to the development of chilly plants. Not to mention that a spring located at the top of the cliff maintains beneficial humidity throughout the year. Patrick and Jacqueline begin by presenting Brazilian and Asian plants located in the lower part of the garden: an enormous specimen of Erythrina crista-galli with spectacular summer flowers, a superb Butia capitata (lacquer palm), two Lagerstroemia indica (Indian lilac), a Constantinople acacia (Albizia julibrissin). Progressing towards the top of the cliff, our two guides stop in front of a 4-season mimosa (Acacia retinodes) which is associated with oleanders (Nerium oleander) and a Chusan palm (Trachycarpus fortunei). The configuration of the garden, whose plants are one with the cliff, sometimes generates delicate situations. Thus, an exceptional specimen of Cretan palm (Phoenix theophrasti) will have to be sacrificed because it is threatened by the crumbling of the rock which must be stabilized. This palm tree, whose species was described and named in 1967 by the Swiss botanist Werner Rodolfo Greuter (born in 1938), is the second palm tree of European origin after the dwarf palm (Chamaerops humilis). It is a plant that is threatened in nature. Patrick is intrigued by another botanical curiosity: a fig tree (Ficus carica) that has not only grown in the very heart of the rock, but has also thrived there, naturally layering itself to form a clonal colony (see the NewsJardinTV video on this subject: • WHO ARE THE OLDEST SPECIMENS OF THE ... ) Having reached the upper part of the visit (town hall square), Patrick and Jacqueline find themselves in the middle of a large grove of Cordyline australis and near an opulent Chilean coconut tree (Jubaea chilensis). Jacqueline explains that the cliff once supplied the village with water. The visit continues in the banana tree alley, shaded by very large Japanese banana trees (Musa Basjoo). They were planted about thirty years ago and are constantly regenerating by the formation of new shoots (they are monocarpic plants whose main plant dies after having produced fruit). The association calls on volunteers every year to mulch (and remove the mulch) the banana trees. It will be happy to welcome you in the fall and spring if you feel like it! To finish, our two gardener guides meet in the bamboo grove, a private property, located right next to the exotic garden but open to the public and in which there is a tea room. The place is exotic and refreshing as you wish, not to be missed! The garden can be visited all year round. Its access is completely free, as is that of the bamboo grove which constitutes a magnificent extension, as peaceful as it is unusual.