What we plant in October, and why
About 4,000 tulip and narcissus bulbs go into the parterre borders this autumn.
An independent association · Versailles
Keeping the gardens growing and the history honest.
Versailles Vivant is a small, member-supported association, independent of the Château de Versailles — funding garden apprenticeships, running public talks, and writing the kind of guide we wished existed.
2016Founded
640+Members
24Programmes in 2025
760Volunteer hours in the gardens
Photo: Unsplash
Who we are
Not the Château. Not a tour company either.
Versailles Vivant is an independent nonprofit — not an official arm of the Château de Versailles, and not a booking agency. We're some 640 members who care about the place enough to fund garden apprentices' stipends, print a proper history pamphlet, or spend a Saturday weeding a parterre most visitors never look at twice. Membership dues and public donations cover almost all of it.
Where the money went in 2025
€145,000 in all, almost entirely from membership dues and donations.
- 52% Garden maintenance
- 22% Garden apprenticeships
- 14% Public programmes
- 7% Archive and research
- 5% Running costs
Our services
What we offer.
Membership
Three tiers from €9 a month, with members-only mornings and the quarterly print journal.
Volunteering
Garden Saturdays, archive research and help at our talks. No membership or experience needed.
Talks and events
Free public talks, members' mornings and monthly volunteer days, with calendar downloads and online booking.
A guide to the estate
Six parts of Versailles, one short paragraph each, with the sources we checked.
Virtual tour
Five stops on the estate, in photos, for anyone who can't visit in person.
Donations
A one-time gift goes into the same fund as membership dues: gardens, apprentices and free talks.
Explore the estate
See all six
Six places worth a closer look.
Entry 01
The Hall of Mirrors
Seventeen arcades of mirror glass — 357 mirrors in all — face the garden windows across a hall 73 metres long. About 70% of the mirrors are still original.
Entry 02
The Royal Apartments
In 1701 Louis XIV moved his bedchamber to the centre of the east façade, facing the rising sun. Court etiquette fixed exactly who could watch the lever du roi.
Entry 03
Gardens & Fountains
An estate of about 800 hectares. Le Nôtre began reshaping the gardens in 1661, and Louis XIV later wrote his own guide to walking them.
Get involved
Membership starts at nine euros a month.
It funds garden apprenticeships, keeps the public talks free, and gets you into three members-only mornings a year before the gates open to everyone else.
See membership options
Latest news
All news
Notes from the gardens and the archive.
What the box hedges cost to maintain
€28,600 in 2025, for two trims a year and a lot of replanting.
The mirrors that aren't all original
About 30% of the mirrors in the Hall of Mirrors are not original. Our archive volunteers are working out which ones.