Tag: Giverny
High Stakes Gardening
Plants with bad posture: can’t stand ’em. Which is a problem in a garden like mine, intended to have an informal, even wild feel to it. Also, I like to grow big plants generally and especially wildflowers accustomed to a lean soil. My soil is fairly rich, the topsoil deep and with lots of organic matter. …
A Few Words About the Village of Giverny
First of all, Giverny is really tiny. The population is only about 500. This seems surprising for a place that is so well-known, but there it is. So it is not surprising that you cannot take the train directly from Paris to Giverny. Instead you have to get off at the somewhat bigger town of …
Giverny in September: Flowers First
In recent decades many garden designers have sought to de-emphasize flowers and pay more attention to form, foliage, and structure. Giverny’s upper garden, on the other hand, is first and foremost about flowers. There are no hedges, no ornamental grasses that I can remember, and not much in the way of plants used primarily for …
Giverny in September: Dahliapalooza
In early September, Giverny has a lot of Dahlias in bloom. I mean a LOT of dahlias. I don’t know any of their names, because I don’t grow any Dahlias, but here are some nice ones we saw. It’s not that I don’t like Dahlias. It’s just that north of zone 7 you have to …
Giverny In September: Look, Ma, No Hedges!
So let’s talk about the structure of the upper garden, the Clos Normande, at Giverny. Giverny has no hedges, clipped or otherwise, but that doesn’t mean it is an amorphous blob. It has paths, arches, trees, walls, and of course Monet’s house. There is structure beneath all that exuberant color and greenery. The structure …
Giverny in September: Americans In The Upper Garden
American plants, that is. I’ve already written about Monet’s lower garden. In trying to write a post about the upper garden, I face a serious challenge. Namely, Judy took exactly 357 pictures, and narrowing those down to a number suitable for a single post is an impossible task. So, I have chosen to do at …
The Lower Garden At Giverny
After Paris, we took the train to Vernon, then got a ride to the village of Giverny, where we stayed overnight. The next morning, we visited Claude Monet’s garden. Monet really created two gardens. There is the upper garden, which has vibrant masses of color emerging from rectangular beds – sometimes called the paintbox garden. …
We’re Leaving, On A Jet Plane
At this moment I am taking a brake from madly running around the house preparing to head out to the airport. Thanks in part to her bountiful frequent flyer miles, Judy and I are flying to Paris tonight. We will be in France and England for two weeks: in and around Paris, in Amboise in …
Is It Hip To Be Square?
There was an interesting article in the June issue (is it already time for the June issue?) of Fine Gardening magazine with the vaguely Orwellian title of “Finding Freedom Through Structure.” The author, George Schoellkopf, argues that gardens built around straight lines and right angles provides a more “attainable aesthetic” because “the structure is woven …
Book Review: Painting with Flowers
Monet at Giverny, by Caroline Holmes; Cassel and Co., 2001. Monet’s Passion: Ideas, Inspiration, and Insights from the Painter’s Gardens,by Elizabeth Murray; Pomegranate Communications, 2010. Some of you know that Judy and I were lucky enough to visit Monet’s garden at Giverny in April of this year. Despite the clouds and chill, we were completely …
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