In 2009, the Royaumont Foundation launched a competition to create an ”allegorical vegetable garden” on the plot of a former vegetable garden of the abbey which was then lying fallow. Landscape architects Astrid Verspieren and Philippe Simonnet were selected. Since 2013, their project has combined the structure of a traditional vegetable garden with an original method of producing edible plants. The 9,000 m² plot consists of an orchard with 60 fruit trees and six 18-metre squares, where 160 varieties of vegetables and 3,000 plants grow. Evergreen hedges of yew and boxwood of different heights structure this biodiversity laboratory.