PLANTING INFO... Environmental Edition, Mary Lovings, Editor Horticulture Edition, Gail Berthe, Editor Landscape Design Edition, Jackie Fulmer, Editor Vol. III, No. 15, Landscape Design Edition July 2018 The Garden Club of Georgia, Inc. Beautification Conservation Education (Editor s Note This is not an easy drive from Georgia, but is well worth the trip for any GCG members who happen to be in France!) Who Was Claude Monet? What a question! Yes everyone knows that Paris-born Oscar- Claude Monet was a French painter. Probably everyone also knows that he was the founder of the French Impressionist Movement. To visit museums housing his paintings is to understand the volume of his work. One wonders how in just one lifetime, an artist could accomplish so much. So what does Claude Monet have to do with landscape architecture? In his own words: I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration. In the 1880 s, he began to paint landscapes to document the French countryside. While traveling through Normandy by train, he discovered the town of Giverny. He and his family found a house there where he designed and planted a large garden. The garden became the source of his 1
inspiration and he painted there for the remainder of his life. It is this garden that showcases his talent in landscape architecture. More Quotes from Monet For me a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment, but the surrounding atmosphere brings it to life the light and the air which vary continually. For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value. I must have flowers, always, and always. My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece. And Now a Photo Tour of Monet s Garden His Masterpiece! (All photos were made by the editor.) 2
As you enter the garden, the first things you notice are rows of huge arbors placed throughout the annual and perennial beds. To maintain these beautiful beds, gardeners work non-stop. Faded plants are removed and immediately replaced by newer and more vibrant ones. 3
And this is why they come! And also this the Japanese Bridge 4
It would seem that each view of the lily pond is a watercolor painting unto itself. The staff removes leaves and other detritus from the ponds in probably the same way as in Monet s day. 5
A visit to Claude Monet s Garden would not be complete without touring his home and seeing works by other artists whose works he collected. The home is set upon a small rise, no doubt to afford the Monet family the best view of the garden. Inspiration is everywhere. 6
A Few Words from the father of Landscape Architecture: Frederick Law Olmstead* From a report on renovations at the Capitol November 1874: The general design is very simple, and will be easily understood. It has two purposes: First, to provide convenient approaches to and standing room about the Capitol; second, to allow its imposing dimensions and the beauty of its architecture to have due effect, and so far as possible, to aid and heighten that effect. Landscape Gardening: There are those who will question the propriety of regarding the production of the poetic beauty of natural landscape as the end of landscape gardening, on the ground that the very term natural beauty means beauty not of man s design, and that the best result of all man s labor will be but a poor counterfeit, in which in which it is vain to look for the poetry of nature. Much has been written to this effect; with what truth to the nature of man it will be well cautiously to consider. A defense of foreign plants: October 1888: But on this point of the adaptability of many foreign trees to flourish in American climates, only think of Peaches, Pears and Apples. *All Olmstead quotes from Olmstead, Writings on Landscape, Culture and Society A Parting Shot from Monet s Garden 7