Monet's Giverny Garden: The Japanese Water Garden

It has been several months since my last post.  A big reason for that was because I was away, traveling around France for a couple of weeks in September.  Once I returned home, and the weather finally started getting cooler in Texas, I was busy tidying up the fall garden.  Now that we have a rainy weekend, thanks to tropical cyclone Patricia, I'm finally able to sit down and start blogging again.

During my travels around France, I was fortunate enough to see some spectacular gardens.  My most favorite garden was that of the great French impressionist, Claude Monet, at his home in Giverny.  My husband and I took a half day trip tour out of Paris to see the garden, which I found to be not nearly enough time to enjoy the expansive garden.  If...no, WHEN I get to go back to France, I will definitely make it a full day trip out there to see the gardens.

There are two main gardens at Giverny, one of which is the Japanese-inspired water garden.  It is also the garden that inspired many of Monet's later works in life, focused on the water lilies.  It is no wonder Monet has so many water lily paintings.  I, too, would be inspired to sit for hours in this serene garden and even pick up a paint brush, despite my complete lack of artistic abilities.

Those weeping willow trees look very familiar...they seem to make quite a few appearances in Monet's works.

I'm definitely a sucker for hydrangeas.  I wish I could grow them in my Texas garden, but it is just too hot and dry for their liking.  Northern France gardens, on the other hand, are a hydrangea's best friend, or so it seems.

I fell in love with these spindly stick plants with little red jewel-like buds on them.

There were some very Japanese-looking structural elements incorporate into the landscape, including these shrubs...

...as well as the bamboo.  

The dahlias were in full bloom, and absolutely stunning.  I definitely need to add more of these to my Texas garden.

There were numerous other bright and exotic plants that filled every nook and cranny of the garden:

But the most iconic element of the garden was, of course, the infamous water lilies:

We were also able to view Monet's large wall-length water lily paintings in the l'Orangerie museum during our stay in Paris.  It was truly amazing to get to see this very special garden, which inspired so many gorgeous works of art.

And to leave you with some quotes from the famous painter...

"My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece." - Claude Monet

"The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration." - Claude Monet

I couldn't agree more.