19th century Alice Alley Azaleas Bamboo climbing roses door entrance Exhibition Flower flowers Garden Giverny Giverny Garden home house Impressionism Japanese Japanese bridge Mill Monet Monet's flower garden Monet's garden Monet's House Museum Museum of Impressionisms Giverny Nymphea painting pink Pond Poppy rhododendrum rose Snow spring spring flowers Tulip Vernon Water-Garden Water Lily weeping willow Winter Wisteria Woodblock yew trees
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better.
In the flower garden turned into a rose garden for a month, weeping roses as big as trees fall from their metallic structure in the shape of a mushroom.
Their pink harmonizes with the blues and purples of the flowers below. A soft match that will last a few days only, before other eye cathing colors appear somewhere else.
In this season, spectacular flowers like irises, paeonies, wallflowers and roses bloom all at the same time.
The small walks of the garden disappear, leaving the illusion of a divine meadow adornated by the most exquisite flowers.
Not to speak about the delicate scent floating in the air…
The paulownia blooms exactly at the same time than the lavender wisterias gracing Monet’s Japanese footbridge.
Is it intended or not? What is a coincidence, and what is due to the choices of a clever gardener?
In Monet’s garden, I believe most of the meetings between plants aren’t accidental. Monet, as well as the present day head gardener, was very good at organising dates among the flowers.
All sorts of tiny little creatures start moving again, as long as the leaves are wet enough to slide on them.
I admired this cute little pink snail and its incredible sense of balance on the edge of a tulip leaf.
Cute, but certainly greedy too! Isn’t it a shame to feed oneself on Monet’s flowers?
Daffodils and hyacinths burst out first, followed by tulips and alliums.
Bright colorful bulbs are everywhere, in the middle of the lawns, in squares, in rows, squattered in flowerbeds…
The gardens of Claude Monet opened two weeks ago, on April 1st. During the winter, benches and fences have been freshly repainted in green, and the spring garden looks repainted too, with the fresh greens of leaves and of grass.
Japanese cherries and crab apple offer their blossoms to the breeze, creating delicate flakes of pink snow.
The air is full of delicious scents and birds songs, and the sun is higher every day.
Monet had a small rose garden in this very protected area. A big wall shelters them from northern wind. Roses don’t get much sunshine either, but apparently they don’t mind. Many plants don’t dislike shadowed exposure as much as they dislike big changes in temperature.
The roses planted in this pocket rose garden are at their peak at the turn of May and June. The picture was taken on June 4. If you visit Giverny at another season, you might want to look for this little corner not for the roses, but for the rhododendrons, the dramatic Philadelphus, or just for the shadowed bench offering views on Monet’s first studio.
When the weather gets cold and evenings dark, it is nice to grasp one’s needles again. Do you like knitting? Alice, Monet’s second wife, loved crocheting. The word seems to come from the french, a crochet being a little hook.
Needle works were considered an elegant pastime in the 19th century. In the middle class, the so called bourgeoisie, and in the aristocracy, ladies and young demoiselles were not supposed to work. But they were supposed to develop their talents at sorted hobbies, watercolor painting, singing, playing the piano… A good command of needle works was also extremely important to be considered an accomplished woman. This meant you would be able to cope with a household. And idleness is so dangerous, isn’t it ?
Alice Monet had four daughters. There was no season for embroidering or sewing for them. When it was cold they sat in the salon, next to the fire place. When it was warm, they preferred the open air and spent the afternoon on the benches of this place under the big tree, on the corner of the Clos Normand.
This place is still called the Ladies Circle.
How could one get tired of this beauty?
The picture was taken this year on October 12.
There were still many flowers in full bloom, the gorgeous dahlias, contrasting with delicate asters and cosmos, and the bright yellow helianthus.
They provide a fabulous setting to the pale pink house.
September and the beginning of October are just breathtaking in Monet’s heaven at Giverny.
The beginning of Autumn is a gorgeous season in Giverny.
Walking in the paths of Monet’s garden provides a unique experience of being merged in the flowers. Giant dahlias, cosmos, sunflowers have reached an incredible height.
All mixed together in enormous bunches of colors, they dance in the slightest breeze.
Overwhelming beauty.
The few visitors exclaim, astonished: It was worth coming! So many flowers! I wouldn’t have believed!
The air smells of sages, lavenders, and the acid fragrance of dying poplar leaves.
The waterlilies floating on the pond seem to be dreaming all day long. They hardly open for a few hours in the afternoon before closing again and returning to their sleep.
A purple bush rose frames the big window of Monet’s first studio at Giverny.
Purple roses are not very common, nor look very natural, but they provide a strong impact. This one has a sweet name: lavender dream. It is lovely in springtime when it flowers in numerous small simple roses.
It is too late now for roses, but it is the right time to see -and smell- lavender in bloom at Giverny, as a slight reminiscence to Provence. It perfumes the air, together with phlox and lilies.
How many gardeners are there at Giverny to tend Monet’s garden, is one of the questions visitors ask most often.
The five acre garden is maintained by eight gardeners.
Some visitors don’t believe me: eighty? they repeat, unsure they have heard well. No, eight only. They do a fantastic job.
In the garden, flowers are changed twice or thrice a year, according to the seasons. When spring flowers are spent they are replaced by summer flowers. This enormous task enables the garden to look very different through the seasons. Spring flowers are small, whereas summer flowers are giant, as tall as sunflowers.
In November all the flowers are pulled out again, the planting of the spring bulbs will take several weeks. The very skilled gardeners of Monet’s estate have a lot of work to do during the winter also, while the property is closed for five months.
In addition, most of the flowers are self produced in greenhouses located in the village of Giverny. This keeps several gardeners busy year round.
It is a hard job to be a gardener in heaven.
What would be Spring without tulips? They illuminate April in Monet’s garden at Giverny.
According to the head gardener, the list of the varieties displayed in the garden is very long: several hundreds of types of tulips make the Clos Normand sort of a flower show.
It is unbelievable how different the tulips can be. Their colors range from pure white to almost black red, from light pink to deep purple, from pale yellow to bright orange. They can be ridiculously tiny, or incredibly tall. Some are classically round shaped, other ones look like stars, or are as twisted as a flame. The parrot tulips seem tightly shut jaws.
But all of them have this silky quality of petals that reminds of the shine of skin, enhanced by dew in the morning sunshine.
Trees in blossom make Giverny especially beautiful in April, like many gardens.
Monet’s garden was originally an orchard. When the painter-gardener transformed his garden into a living painting, he kept few fruit trees: they looked too common for him, Monet preferred more exotic species. But he still had espaliered pear and apple-trees leaning against the high stone walls.
He also cultivated them around a square lawn pruned in a shape that is called cordon (rope, maybe?). It is quite common in Normandy and looks very pretty.
When the apple trees are very young, two or three years old only, they are severely pruned. The gardener keeps one branch only on each side of the trunk. In Monet’s garden there is an upper tree and a lower tree, and they cross. The purpose for this clipping is to make lovely hedges and to obtain bigger apples, as they get a lot of sunshine and water. It is not always very convincing that the trick works, but at least the apples are easy to pick up… and very tasty!
This is how Monet’s garden looked on April 1st, the very first morning it was open this year.
The morning sun enhances the pure lines of the Japanese bridge, whereas the air is full of scent from spring flowers like daffodils, pansies and hyacinths.
The light of this early hour has pink and blue notes and a very special vaporous quality.
Everything looks renewed and fresh, ready for a new start.
Aren’t you tired of winter? We all look forward to spring. In Monet’s garden sprouts of flowers are coming out, while the gardeners are busy planting the pansies.
This is the way they will look in early April. Hyacinths will be already in full bloom and full scent, their delicate perfume recognizable steps away. At Giverny they greet the visitors right at the entrance to the garden.
Their pink combines perfectly with the mauve pansies flowering at the same time. All together they make a bunch of spring.