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Alice Alley Autumn Azaleas Church entrance Exhibition Fall Flower flowers Garden Giverny Giverny Garden home house Impressionism Japanese Japanese bridge Kitchen Monet Monet's flower garden Monet's garden Monet's home Monet's House Museum Museum of Impressionisms Giverny Nymphea painting pink Pond Poppy rose Snow spring spring flowers studio Summer Tree Tulip Vernon Water-Garden Water Lily weeping willow Winter Wisteria
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Two curved bridges face one another on both ends of Monet’s pond at Giverny.
The big one is covered with wisterias, whereas the small one doesn’t have any.
But a neighbouring wisteria can give the illusion that it is covering the little bridge too!
Its golden color brightens all the greens around.
Summer is coming to an end, offering a large display of flowers in Claude Monet’s gardens at Giverny.
The flower beds that looked organised in early season are now full of overgrown plants, sunflowers, dahlias, cosmos…
Under the clematis, smaller borders catch the morning light dancing on the freshly watered gauras.
Weeping willows were among Claude Monet’s favorite trees for many reasons, one of them being the translucent quality of their leaves.
On the side of his water lily pond at Giverny, Monet planted several willows.
Two of them still survive, although some branches start to become hollow.
But young willows planted thirty years ago, like the one on the picture, are now mature, as big as Monet could have seen them.
Weeping willows fascinate because of their vertical twigs that beautifully reflect into the pond.
Visitors will also see two other kinds of willows, the tortuous ones, very decorative, and the basket willows.
Generally pruned drastically to force the willow to produce new twigs every year, that will be cut to weave baskets, these willows like the river borders and are part of the traditional landscape of Normandy.
In Monet’s gardens, however, one of them was allowed to grow, and its branches pointed to the sky like a V make it resemble a person with the arms up. A very happy willow!
Water lilies are summer flowers.
They like a warm water and a lot of sunshine.
In Monet’s garden at Giverny, the Nympheas that grace the pond are at their peak.
Their crowns of pale petals reflect in the changing colors of the surface, creating harmonies that inspire the many painters visiting the gardens.
In Monet’s garden at Giverny, the month of June is a feast of colors.
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.
It has been sunny and dry lately at Giverny. So, when the gardeners start watering in Monet’s gardens, it sounds like a relief not only for 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?
Forthysias are in bloom again at Giverny.
Their bright yellow enlightens not only Monet’s, but every gardens.
Today it is raining a little bit. The sky is overcast and grey, the Seine silvery, the landscape bathed in a mute grey light.
This is the weather forthysias like most for their very special magic. When all the colors have disappeared, their bunches burn like fires. Their straight twigs resemble rays of sunshine.
When the real sun comes back again, the magic vanishes. Forthysia bunches become yellow flowers again.
Few visitors explore this corner of Monet’s gardens at Giverny. It is hidden between his home and a row of linden trees. The pathway leads to nowhere: it used to be the way to Monet’s second studio, but the latter is not open to the public.
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.
Monet’s pond is frozen.
A small coating of snow hides the surface like a new canvas.
Long blue shadows stretch on the shining whiteness.
Not a single flower.
Even the brave pansies are covered with a blanket of snow.
No colors, except for the green bridges.
Birds are hiding, but their prints are everywhere, like strange words written in the snow.
And the running water of the river reminds that life is awaiting under the appearant death of nature.
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 beauty of early October at Giverny, when Monet’s flower garden radiates with bright colors, is breathtaking.
It is certainly one of the best times to see the painter’s garden, more impressionist than ever.
Huge bouquets of sunflowers, asters, dahlias, cosmos mix their colors to create an overwhelming effect.
The metallic arches and tripods vanish in this sea of flowers, as well as visitors.
Fall is a talented artist who paints beautiful works on Monet’s water lily pond at Giverny.
Late October is the best time to admire the warm reflection of foliage on the surface so often painted by the master of Impressionism.
Liquidambars, weeping willows, poplars, taxodium, beech, chestnut trees all offer their brightest tones duplicated by the mirror of the lake.
Then the breeze comes like a magic stick to blur it all and turn the perfect images into nature’s brushstrokes.
And the little green bridge is there to frame it all.
Monet’s gardens at Giverny will soon close: next Sunday in the evening, on November 1st. Just before their Winter sleep, they offer a gorgeous show on the side of the water garden.
The tall trees that surround the pond change their green or dark red colors for much brighter ones.
The taxodium becomes as red as a squirrel. It will last a few days and then it will loose its needles, until new ones grow next Spring, giving it a fresh green look.
Through the branches of the taxodium, like a spying eye, one can spot a window of Monet’s house in the distance.
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.