DANS LE JARDIN DE MÉLISSA La Pépinière (“The Nursery”) a Beachcomber Group initiative that was launched in 2009 and has been open to the public since summer 2024, is a temple of nature. The head of the nursery is a bubbly and conscientious 27-year-old woman. We meet Mélissa Daruty under the Persian lilac. Ouverte au public depuis l’été 2024, La Pépinière, initiée en 2009 par le Groupe Beachcomber, est un temple de la nature. À sa tête, une jeune femme de 27 ans, aussi lumineuse que rigoureuse. Rencontre avec Mélissa Daruty sous le lilas de Perse. BY FANNY RIVA PHOTOGRAPHS NATHALIE BAETENS Les Salines in Rivière Noire, in the south-west of the island, is a land criss-crossed by rainbows that lies at the feet of the Morne Brabant mountain. Here, stretching out behind a row of eucalyptus trees swaying in the wind, are seven acres of plants and vegetation, including valuable, slow-growing endemic plants. In this dry, arid region, the nursery is a cool oasis. It is difficult not to be impressed by the meticulous organisation, the rows of shoots and the delicate colour range – shades of blue-green, purple-grey and “Sunrise Rose pink”. La Pépinière is now open to visitors. 60% of the production is destined for the gardens of Beachcomber resorts and other projects such as the Harmonie project to rehabilitate the wetlands, the remaining 40% are for sale. NATURE AS HERITAGE Mélissa Daruty de Grandpré (under the reign of Louis XIV, her family name Darut – which means the woods in Sanskrit – gained a “y” and her ancestor from Avignon was made seigneur de Grandpré) has been Gardens Manager since February 2021. She is in charge of the nursery and the landscaping of Beachcomber Group’s hotels in the south. “I spent my childhood outside, more in the trees in Goodlands’ Renaissance Gardens than in the family home. I have an instinctive bond with nature,” says Mélissa, who lives in Tamarin. It is a visceral attachment that comes to her from her family: her father, who once managed a sugar company and a nursery and is also a keen horticulturist, her mother, an expert in medicinal plants and artisanal herbal teas and her grandmothers, who were both enamoured with plants and flowers. “I like beauty in all its forms, natural beauty and artistic beauty – literature, music, the arts, cooking. But I also have a very rational, organised mind.” And to prove it, Mélissa graduated top of her year with a master’s in international business law from Middlesex University in Mauritius. But “the call of nature was stronger!” Mélissa Daruty IN MÉLISSA’S GARDEN “I HAVE AN INSTINCTIVE BOND WITH NATURE.”
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