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This is the book that I wanted the insipid Everyday Monet to be. It's a detailed guide by a man who is an expert gardener and photographer, and used to work for Burpee Seeds. I'm not sure there has ever been a more perfect person to write a book.
Fell's book goes into great detail on exactly how Monet's garden was designed and why, and what an ordinary gardener can do to use some of the same principles on their own garden. He's both helpful and realistic in terms of what an ordinary person can actually do.
If you want to have a garden exactly like Monet's the short answer is that you probably can't, at least not in the way the garden is now planted and managed, as a complex space with intense color through three seasons and every inch of soil vibrant with healthy plants. Unless you are prepared to employ nine gardeners who work like dervishes under the eagle eye at the head gardener, it's unlikely you will be able to replicate the full grandeur of Giverny. Also, you would need to use a backhoe to completely dig up exhausted planting beds for renovation and replanting almost every year. It also require a range of greenhouses to grow nearly 200,000 annuals, biennials, and perennials.
Some of the design elements of Monet's garden that Fell explains are shimmer and sparkle, which Monet attained by planting white flowers amongst colored flowers, bicolored flowers, and flowers whose thin petals give a sense of translucence, such as poppies or cosmos.
There's sections on water gardens, structures such as bridges, benches, and leafy walkways, suggestions for how an ordinary gardener could replicate some effects similar to those in Giverny, and, again, a realistic sense of what makes sense for someone who is not Monet. For instance he very sensibly warns against wisteria, which is gorgeous if you have nine gardeners and will engulf your garden like a pretty purple eldritch horror if you don't.
This book is exactly what I wanted, and I look forward to putting some of its suggestions into practice.
Fell has written a lot of very tempting gardening books, but for now I am restraining myself.
Fell's book goes into great detail on exactly how Monet's garden was designed and why, and what an ordinary gardener can do to use some of the same principles on their own garden. He's both helpful and realistic in terms of what an ordinary person can actually do.
If you want to have a garden exactly like Monet's the short answer is that you probably can't, at least not in the way the garden is now planted and managed, as a complex space with intense color through three seasons and every inch of soil vibrant with healthy plants. Unless you are prepared to employ nine gardeners who work like dervishes under the eagle eye at the head gardener, it's unlikely you will be able to replicate the full grandeur of Giverny. Also, you would need to use a backhoe to completely dig up exhausted planting beds for renovation and replanting almost every year. It also require a range of greenhouses to grow nearly 200,000 annuals, biennials, and perennials.
Some of the design elements of Monet's garden that Fell explains are shimmer and sparkle, which Monet attained by planting white flowers amongst colored flowers, bicolored flowers, and flowers whose thin petals give a sense of translucence, such as poppies or cosmos.
There's sections on water gardens, structures such as bridges, benches, and leafy walkways, suggestions for how an ordinary gardener could replicate some effects similar to those in Giverny, and, again, a realistic sense of what makes sense for someone who is not Monet. For instance he very sensibly warns against wisteria, which is gorgeous if you have nine gardeners and will engulf your garden like a pretty purple eldritch horror if you don't.
This book is exactly what I wanted, and I look forward to putting some of its suggestions into practice.
Fell has written a lot of very tempting gardening books, but for now I am restraining myself.
