Quimper – In Quimper, Adèle Le Berre tells the thousand and one stories of plants

It is barely 10 a.m. this Wednesday in the Priory garden, in Locmaria. Above this haven of peace bordered by the Odet, a sky that oscillates between soft blue and anthracite grey. And a few fine drops of rain… But nothing to tarnish the discovery of the place. It is in this 1,700 m² setting that Adèle Le Berre has decided to concentrate her Quimper walks, every Wednesday in summer.

An obvious stopover. “Many Quimpérois do not know him. However, this garden is great because it brings together a bit of everything. There are a lot of medicinal plants, but also food, tinctorial, etc. enthuses the 44-year-old journalist who has just taken a sabbatical to devote herself to her passion.

“Being able to identify plants wherever I am”

A passion that germinated in contact with his grandparents. And who definitely took root in her thirties, when she moved to Saint-Ségal. Adèle then begins by creating a vegetable garden in her garden. “Then, very quickly, I became interested in medicinal plants. I started growing it, picking it on the right, on the left”. She also immerses herself in books. Never satisfied, the athlete joined the Breton school of herbalism in Plounéour-Ménez. A two-year course, completed last summer. “But I wanted to go further, to be able to talk about all the plants and to be able to identify them in nature, wherever I am”. At the start of the school year, the Quimperoise at heart therefore embarked on a university degree in field botany, offered by the faculty of pharmacy of Amiens.

A knowledge that has been lost

Through his self-employed The Good Herbs Workshop, she now wants to transmit. “Because before, everyone knew how to use plants… But that was completely abandoned… It got lost,” she laments. To add: “I am not an expert botanist. But I try to share these notions and to open a new eye on nature, on plants, and on all that they can bring, on all that we have forgotten”. In the garden of the Priory, two hours of walks have been imagined in this direction. The birth of the place, the history of medicine, anecdotes about this or that plant… The herbalist is inexhaustible.

Obligatory passage, also, in front of “the square of magic plants”. A flower bed stamped with “poisonous plants”, where Adèle easily detects castor bean, black henbane, aconite napel… A formidable playground, from which she leaves room for the imagination. To evoke the mandrake or the belladonna, “these plants of the witches which made it possible to fly in other worlds”…

But the one that Finistère prefers remains the meadowsweet. To discover its intoxicating scent, head to the Prieuré garden on a Wednesday summer morning…

Practice

Discovering the plants of the medicinal garden of Locmaria with Adèle Le Berre, every Wednesday, until August 10, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Prices ; 12 €, on registration: www.ateliers-botaniques.bzh ; 06 63 27 49 40.