Autumn in Claude Monet’s garden

Alice Spenser-Higgs

New vistas open up with every step, as the eye is drawn down the series of overflowing borders that flank the Grande Alleé. Being autumn in France, the garden’s crowning glories are the dazzling yellow rudbeckia reaching for the sky, airy cosmos, luxuriant dahlias with flowers the size of dinner plates and mauve asters on steroids.

The Grande Alleé, which is the garden’s famous feature, along with the lily pond, doesn’t disappoint. The series of arches run almost the full length of the garden, framing the view from which ever side you view it. Pale blue morning glory creepers twine up and around the green steel arches, with yellow and orange nasturtiums tumbling across the gravel at the bottom.

Closest to the house are beds of white and post-box-red geraniums that stop you in your tracks, especially as they are backed by the salmon pink and green trimmed house. It should clash, and in fact it does but some how gets away with it. The other famous feature is the Japanese-inspired water garden that is now separated from the flower garden by a road that divides the property in two. In contrast to the exuberance of the flower garden, is green, serene and cool.

Neither the wisteria nor the water lilies were flowering, but you can still imagine Claude Monet launching his boat into the lily pond and spending hours spellbound by the changing light on the water.

Monet did not like organized or controlled gardens, but wanted plants to grow freely and naturally. The gardeners that look after the gardens today remain faithful to his original vision by mixing common flowers planted together according to colour.

For a Monet-style summer border, plant tall-growing sunflowers, rudbeckia, cannas, purple asters, dahlias, delphinium gladioli, or golden rod (Solidago) at the back of a bed. In front fill in with daisies, dwarf campanula, bedding dahlias, pelargoniums, fuchsia, salvias, snapdragons and zinnias. As an edging use marigolds, evening primrose, lamium, or snow in summer. Rose covered obelisks, or standard roses can also be used to provide height in the border.

Monet’s home and gardens were almost lost to the public. Claude Monet died in 1926 and the property passed onto the family. It fell into disrepair after the Second World War and in 1966 was ceded to the Academie des Beaux-Arts. It took almost 10 years to restore the house and garden, including re-digging the pond and bringing new soil into the flower garden. The property opened to the public in 1980 and is visited by 500 000 people a year.