Aimé Bonpland Exhibition Greenhouse (Municipal Horticultural Centre)

La Rochelle's Municipal Horticultural Centre was set up in Mireuil, north of the city, to take over from the former municipal greenhouses in the Saint-Éloi district. The city dates the move to 2008, whereas a guide quoted by a visitor in 2021 speaks of the site's 10,000 m² coming out of the ground in 2010; the two dates do not agree. In June 2012, during the tenth Rendez-vous aux jardins, the newspaper Sud Ouest presented the exhibition greenhouse as "new": a 1,500 m² building already holding more than 400 species, not due to open to the public before the second half of the year.

Regular guided visits date from autumn 2019: a local blog places them from 1 September, while the city's page says October. In June 2021 the health protocol limited the Rendez-vous aux jardins to the tropical greenhouse alone, by booking. The greenhouse is named after Aimé Bonpland, a physician and naturalist born in La Rochelle in 1773, who according to Sud Ouest brought back some 60,000 plant specimens from Latin America; an exhibition on his travels, first shown in 2023 at the Museum's botanical garden, was presented there in 2024. In June 2026 the greenhouse was still on the Rendez-vous aux jardins programme, alongside a regional bonsai show.

The city's page on the horticultural centre describes 10,000 m² of glass greenhouses, of which 1,500 m² are open to the public on the first Sunday of the month with the visit of the exhibition greenhouse; another city page gives the latter 1,400 m² and calls it a greenhouse "tropical in character". Sud Ouest described it in 2012 as a building "at the cutting edge of environmental standards". At site level, the city lists rainwater and irrigation-water recovery, photovoltaic panels, a wood-fired boiler supplying 80% of the heating (gas provides the rest) and centralised control of ventilation, heating and humidity.

Inside, the route is staged, with a wooden walkway through the middle, a belvedere overlooking the whole greenhouse, meeting rooms and an educational space for schoolchildren. The decor is made of recycled materials and objects built by the staff of the parks department, along with wrought-iron animals.

The route presents plants by theme rather than by botanical family. It opens with the first plants to appear on Earth (ferns, mosses, lichens), then crosses a tropical orchard (bananas, papayas, pineapples, mangoes, guavas) and a section of useful plants: kapok, agave, sugar cane, tea, coffee, cotton, flax, and spice plants such as pepper, ginger and liquorice. The arid zone gathers cacti and euphorbias. Continent-based displays evoke America, in homage to Aimé Bonpland, Africa, with orchids, and Asia, along with plants brought back to La Rochelle in the days of the triangular trade.

The "bizarretum" groups the species that defy classification: carnivorous plants, orchids, a caudex plant that hibernates ten months a year, the bat flower, the sensitive mimosa. One visitor also noted large tree ferns nearly 4 m tall and a pond with frogs. In 2012 the greenhouse held more than 400 species. Outdoors, the site has a shrub collection, an apiary and a sentinel pollinarium.

The greenhouse stands in the municipal horticultural centre at 24 rue de la Bergerie, in the Mireuil district in the north of the city; bus line 2 stops at Cimetière paysager. The visit is led by a gardener, lasts about an hour and a half, is free and is booked online for the first Sunday of each month; the route is accessible to visitors with reduced mobility. The rest of the centre, devoted to production, opens only during the Rendez-vous aux jardins in early June, sometimes with an exhibition, such as the bonsai show in 2026.

One visitor noted nearly 28 °C inside against 10 °C outside in March 2021, so dress in layers that are easy to shed. The half-day can continue at the Museum of Natural History's botanical garden in the city centre.