Big crowd this Tuesday at the municipal greenhouses of Olivet. Arms loaded with flowers, a couple returns to their car with a smile on their faces. A pensioner arrives in the opposite direction with empty bags and others wait at the entrance.
Since the beginning of the day, the inhabitants can come for free to fetch the geraniums, petunias, and other impatience that were to bloom the massifs of the city. The reason? The drought and the prefectural ban on watering fell on May 30.
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The municipality has therefore decided to suspend all ongoing plantings. And instead of letting the plants wither in the greenhouses, she chose to give them as gifts to anyone who wants it, as long as they have a rainwater collector.
Favor perennials and roses
In a few hours a hundred people came to help themselves, and stocks should quickly be exhausted. Claudie, sitting on a bench waiting for her turn, rejoices at the windfall, but can't help but be bitter. "It's still sad to come to this kind of measure," she sighs.
"After last year's drought, we had already planned to plant less this year, and in the fall, we replaced some beds with perennials, roses, shrubs with decorative foliage. We may continue this year, "says the head of green spaces, Eric Tous.
However, Olivet will not completely abandon the flowering and will keep some emblematic massifs, towards the town hall, the war memorial, the forecourts of the churches, etc.
To water, the city relies on the water recovery tank located under the Alliage, the theater, as well as on a borehole that is not yet affected by the drought order. With the risk that it will not last very long if the rain does not fall...