Summer is back! In Monet’s garden, it’s the best time to see water lilie in their splendor. They love a warm water, many hours of sunshine, and all the admirers who walk around the Giverny pond, just like the painter in his times.
Summer is also a great time for dahlias, day lilies, snap dragons or castor plants, to quote but a few visible on this picture.
Early June, masses of poppies flower in Monet’s gardens, under the majestic arches covered with roses. Large pink, purple or mauve papaver somniferum are combined with wild looking scarlet poppies. Claude Monet loved and painted both.
It’s a long awaited show. Poppy seeds are scattered in the flower beds and grow on site among spring flowers. Late May, the first buds open at last, offering their transluscent petals to the morning sunbeams. One or two weeks later, an overwhelming wave of poppies invades the gardens. They are striking as a whole, and adorable seen close up, with their little heads surrounded by crumpled petals.
At poppies time, bees are in heaven, and so are we.
In Claude Monet’s water garden in Giverny, each tree has its own color. In spring, the honey locust (aka gleditsia) planted next to the water lily pond boasts an extraordinary color, that combines beautifully with the purple foliages around. Through its elegantly curved branches, Monet’s house appears in the distance. Two windows look like eyes peeping through the vegetation. On the right, the large windows of Monet’s third studio shine in the early light.
This is how the wisterias over the Japanese footbridge in Monet’s garden look today. The earliest is in full bloom, but not yet the ones with long flowers on the far left. The beautiful white wisteria will flower last, when the first one will be over, in about 10-15 days. As always in a garden, you cannot have it all at the same time. But no matter when in the next days, the wisterias will steal the show, before the first water lilies open on the surface of the Giverny pond.
The Easter week-end is over, flowers are blooming, the first water lily pads float on Claude Monet’s pond, the little green bridge reflects on the water. It’s tulip time.
Claude Monet’s house and gardens, aka Fondation Claude Monet, will reopen to the public after the winter break on March 29, 2024.
It will be the Easter week-end, so it may be quite busy on the first days.
To save time, make sure you buy your admission tickets ahead of time.
Here is the link: http://giverny.org/gardens/fcm/ticket/
Happy trip planning!
This January there were a few days cold enough in Giverny to freeze the surface of Monet’s water lily pond. The dormant rhizoms of the flowers, still alive at the bottom of the pond, don’t mind.
Freezing temperatures didn’t last. We could soon put gloves and scarves aside. And the boat is floating again on the water, ready for the gardeners to use it. The planting of spring flowers is still in progress in Claude Monet’s gardens. It will be completed soon. The venue reopens to the public on 29th March 2024.