Garden expo allows expats to cosplay as landowners
Experience nature like never before — shared, simulated, and strictly temporary.
You always dreamed of having a house with a garden. Luxembourg is finally delivering — the garden part, anyway. The house? Please. This is still Luxembourg. And the plants? Like your career prospects, they'll be dead by October.
In what can only be described as psychological warfare against anyone under 40, the towns of Luxembourg and Ettelbruck have been transformed into sprawling, majestic gardens — if gardens had luxury SUVs, designer boutiques, and the crushing awareness that the only thing growing is your rent.
Hundreds of thousands of euros have been lovingly funnelled into bougainvillea, begonias, and big, bold bushes — all to create an event that, much like your last paycheck, will disappear mysteriously and leave you wondering if it was ever real.
“It’s so inspiring,” said one attendee, stroking a wisteria vine. “I’m thinking of putting a fern in the bathroom. It’s time.”
Take a tour and see how your favourite green spaces have been made even greener — with natural installations, lush plants, and fistfuls of bank notes.
In the capital, enjoy exciting installations like the Soil Sampling Station, where expats can reconnect with nature by touching actual dirt for the first time since their gap year in Bali.
Feeling bold? Try the Expat Garden Planner™ — input your salary and find out which plant you can responsibly care for (spoiler: it's a single succulent named "Steve". He’s emotionally low-maintenance — unlike your landlord).
Show you care for the planet and head to the Composting Corner™ — the only place in Luxembourg where throwing away your future is considered eco-friendly.
Want to support pollination? Try Rent-a-Bee™ — now with tiered pricing, ranging from mildly stingy to full-blown anaphylaxis included.
Just browsing? Step into the Virtual Garden Ownership Experience™, a VR simulation that lets you argue with neighbours over hedge height, battle dandelions, and enjoy the fantasy of land ownership — without ever leaving your overpriced studio.
To help everyone feel at home during Saturday’s grand opening of the garden festival, cremant flowed like hopes at a university career fair. By midnight, several attendees were arrested for drunkenly digging holes in municipal flowerbeds. “But it’s my garden!” slurred one man in a Uniqlo gilet, before being gently escorted back to his fourth-floor rental and told he could keep the spade “as a souvenir of his delusions.”
LOL!!