GARDEN

- New York, NY & Giverny, France

Clematis and Water Lilies

With winter approaching along come the holiday and garden catalogs for us to start planning for spring planting.

One inspiration comes not from a plant catalog but from the upcoming Sotheby’s New York auction in November. Claude Monet’s ‘Clématites’ (or Clematis) is about to be offered up from a private Belgian collector. The painting is estimated to sell in the mid $2 million range. It is particularly interesting that it pre-dates his famous water lilies series and has a similar patterned quality leading toward abstraction.

The current plant list from Giverny gardens does not list a white clematis vine now, but you can find a similar specimen; Clematis Artic Queen at your local nursery or from many mail-order houses including White Flower Farm- where one expects it to be available for spring delivery.

If you are thinking about visiting the famed garden in the Seine Valley do know that the start of the water lilies season is July. Until then we have the 2nd floor galleries at MoMA where now through April of 2010 Monet’s late paintings, including the water lilies triptych, are all together for the first time in the museum.

www.Giverny.org
www.WhiteFlowerFarm.com
www.MoMA.org