Nympheas

Nympheas (White water lilies) are aquatic perennial plants originating from European ponds. The family ‘’Nymphéacées’’ has a total of about fifty sorts, perennial or deciduous, nocturnal or diurnal. Floating and round leaves have a split base and are declined in numerous shades.

(white, creamy, bright yellow, orange, rose, red, blue, crimson…).

Nympheas own their name thanks to the Greek and Roman water divinities. More poetic than « nénuphar », Monet preferred to use this name to describe the flowers he loved so much. 

 

Nymphéas like light and warmth. It is, however advised to plant them in calm and well exposed pond. The pond would not be too deep: Monet’s one presents different levels of depth, favourable to numerous varieties. Water lilies are planted from April. As they grow in rhizomes and can easily cover the whole pond, Giverny’s gardeners plant them in big metallic tanks buried in the mud. Water lilies are very easy to maintain, particularly if the pond is full of fishes in charge to eat the greenflies! If you want to maintain the islet’s effect, the trimming of leaves becomes an important activity during the summer time.

 

After he had been a «crazy about flowers» painter all along his life, Claude Monet spent his last years devoting a true cult to an only one among them: ‘’Nymphéa’’. These corollas, reflecting on the surface of water have fascinated him and he has always wanted to find the way to traduce these light effects in his painting. As soon as in the morning, he was coming to the edge of the pond and was contemplating the landscape for hours, before he started to paint. Félix Breuil, his chief gardener, related: « we had white, yellow, red Nympheas (…), also blue ones, exotic varieties prepared in glasshouse ». Gardeners, at this time, were cleaning the pond every day and were trimming the leaves in order to keep the circular aspect of plants coming from the nursery gardener Latour-Marliac.

Nympheas flower during the whole summer, from the end of June until the end of September, but the most beautiful months to admire them are July and August.