Monet comes West - painter Claude Monet - Special Issue: Spring-Summer 1994 Garden Guide

A California designer tended plants at the artist's garden in Giverny and brought home some ideas

For artist Claude Monet, gardening and painting were inextricably linked. "I owe having become a painter to flowers," he confessed. "More than anything, I must have flowers always, always." He considered his garden at Giverny, northwest of Paris, to be his greatest work of art as it evolved over 46 years. When I first saw Monet's garden, I was struck by the beauty and abundance of the flower beds. I wanted to know the garden more intimately, to know all the flowers in each season, to be there from spring through autumn, digging, pruning, planting, feeding, rejoicing. In short, I had fallen in love. So I left my garden design position in Carmel and arranged to work at the garden in exchange for lodging.

During my stay at Giverny, I learned much about color and composition in the garden and about the play of light through flowers--elements that were important to the French artist. And I gathered many ideas to bring home to California; some of them are pictured on these pages.

Living tapestry of color and light

Monet organized his garden into different color zones. Some played off two complementary colors--rich pinks and purples, for example, or fiery tones of yellow and red. Others featured large blocks of one color. To unify the whole garden, each season he chose a dominant color--such as blue or lavender--to weave throughout.

Trellises of different sizes and shapes, which supported vines and roses, added height and structure to the garden. On some of these trellises, Monet grew small-flowered clematis, for the look of lace curtains blowing in the wind. In beds mounded 6 inches high, the largest plants filled the center and the smallest plants--aubrieta, nasturtium, and saxifrage, for example--softened the edges.

Like an exquisite flower arrangement, the beds blended flowers and foliage in a variety of shapes and textures. Monet incorporated wild native plants and annuals that reseed themselves into the garden. To extend interest throughout the seasons, he inter-planted bulbs, annuals, perennials, roses, vines, and fruit trees into one harmonious, ever-evolving whole. He avoided plants with variegated foliage--too spotty for his taste.

In his garden as in his paintings, Monet was especially conscious of patterns of light, which change throughout the day and from season to season. He preferred single flowers because they allow light to play through their petals, giving them the rich look of stained glass windows.

The garden today

To plan these magnificent flower beds in the spirit of Monet, who died in 1926, gardeners keep a drawing of the garden and its permanent plants on hand. They plan each season's plantings on separate overlays (one for bulbs, another for annuals), by playing with colored pencils until they find color combinations that work.

They plant summer annuals in May. To prolong bloom, they snip spent flowers almost daily. Plants get a light feeding with every watering.

Around October 30, gardeners pull out the annuals, then loosely aerate beds with a pitchfork and dig in compost (rich soil is one secret to keeping the flowers thriving while so tightly packed in garden beds). All kinds of garden debris go into the compost, even algae skimmed from the famous water lily pond.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Sunset Publishing Corp.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group