The Agdal botanical trial garden (Rabat) will soon reopen its doors to the public after redevelopment works that required a budget of around 50 million dirhams (MDH), announced the garden's curator, Khalid Arsalane.

The inclusion of certain slow-growing plants in the garden's design is the reason for the delay recorded in the opening of these grounds, which constitute a scientific and ecological space par excellence, indicated Mr. Arsalane in a statement to the MAP, noting that this relaxation space houses more than 600 ornamental and fruit-bearing woody species of diverse origins: local, tropical, subtropical, and desert.

Planted in the heart of the capital, the trial garden has, since its creation in 1914, constituted a testing laboratory participating in the development of botanical sciences and the preservation of the environment and biodiversity. The rehabilitation of this space will certainly make a substantial contribution to the efforts aimed at preserving the national heritage and developing the ecological, scientific, and recreational infrastructure of the capital.

The redevelopment of the trial garden, which covers an area of 17 hectares, is the result of a partnership between the wilaya of the Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaërs region, as the main partner of the National Institute for Agricultural Research in project management, the Urban Commune of Rabat, and the Hassan II Fund for Economic and Social Development.

The development works focused in particular on the creation of a new plan, in accordance with scientific landscaping standards, the planting of rare species, equipping the garden with street lamps, and modernising the irrigation network.

The trial garden was the first public garden created as part of the Rabat city development plan, which established green spaces as a main component of its urban plan (Trial Garden, Belvedere Garden, Triangle de vue, Oudayas Garden, etc.).

The design of the trial garden was laid out in the French style with a terraced perspective by Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier, based on symmetry and order according to European architecture, while integrating water surfaces (basins, seguias...) and a covering of zellige tiles of varying colours and shapes according to local traditional architecture. It was therefore a juxtaposition of past and contemporary architecture, hence the originality of its neo-Moorish style.

The trial garden was designed in thematic squares where new introductions of ornamental plants and tropical fruit trees were acclimatised, which were imported from the four corners of the world and served to improve and diversify the Moroccan horticultural heritage. Certain species today make the originality of the Rabat botanical trial garden, such as Calodendron capensis, Spathodea campanulata, Brachychiton rupestris, or even the blue palm Brahia capitata or the bottle palm Jubaea chilensis, not to mention conifers including Araucaria and Podocarpus gracilior. Currently, the Rabat botanical trial garden contains about 600 ornamental and fruit species.