Spring

 

April:  the public is welcome in the gardens when apple trees and cherry trees compete in their rose ‘’camaieu’’ cloudy flowerings, looking like a Japanese evocation. Some of these ‘’Prunus’’ have been offered in 1990 par the Japanese Ambassador. As coloured "touch-up’’, the perfumed white daffodils and the jonquils splash the foot of the trees. The gardeners are busy with the maintenance of  ligneous species. Then comes the turn ot the rose trees just after a severe trimming, the "palissage’’ of "climbing’’ plants begins. In the flower beds, it is time to prick out perennials issued from the seed bed according to their different flowering periods. This work will take place for three months. The most fragile species as cornflowers will only be replanted in June. A late freezing would occur ? Some of the plantations would freeze on their feet ! The gardener’s science interposes, with methods used by Gilbert Vahé to harden the plants. The oxeye summer daisies (Leucanthemum x superbum) are the first ones to raise with their white head and golden heart, at the same time as big flowers campanulas (Campanula medium) with their spikes covered by blue, white or rose small bellflowers and tufts of foxgloves. (Digitalis purpurea). The manual weeding of bed flowers will go on every day until autumn.

 

May : modest and noble perennials associate in good company. Honesties (Lunaria) and ‘’Julienne des Dames’’ (Hesperis matronalis) are replanted with the irises. Some stakes are installed particularly at the foot of climbing species like clematis, rose trees, honeysuckles (Lonicera) as well as some circles for the peonies (Paeonia lactiflora). Gilbert Vahé prepares the plants in pots which will take place inside the house. Among them, the orchids coming from the glass-house, exactly rebuilt in the same way as it was at the Monet's time. Winter plants are in blossom, as well as the irises. Around the water garden, the light prevails. Buds from the beginning of spring are now replaced by young growths of the willows. The pond has been liberated of the cumbersome seaweeds. The "nymphéas’’ have been divided and open out in a clear water, surrounded by trees which have been trimmed so that the shade and light plays can express themselves. In this acid ground garden, compared to the rather alkali ground of the "Clos Normand’’, rhododendrons, azaleas, Japanese maple trees (Acer japonica) and "viornes obiers’’ (Viburnum opulus) make an ideal shelter for pansies and covers of wallflowers, "aspérules odorantes" (Asperula odorata) and tulips (T. ‘Kleukenhof’). In both gardens, as soon as one flower droops, it is suppressed. Most of the bulbs are taken of and replaced by rustic or semi-rustic annual species which have been grown in the glass-house, snapdragons (Antirrhinum majus), and varieties of tobacco (Nicotiana)…