The gardens of Baudy

The garden of the former Hôtel Baudy is the subject of a project led by the association Les Jardins Baudy des Peintres Américains: to turn the grounds into a memory walk devoted to the Giverny artists’ colony.

The principle is simple. No long straight avenues, but a winding path from which the whole garden is never visible at once. At each turn, a station: an artist, a plant associated with them, a plain plaque bearing their name, their dates and the reason they are honoured. Nothing more. A discreet reproduction of one of their works, set on a sloping table as in a museum. A bench, placed where a painter might have set up an easel.

At the centre, a pergola covered with old roses; around it, the American painters. A small lily pool, a nod to Monet, without attempting to reproduce his garden. And an easel left empty, where anyone may come and paint.

The Memory Garden is not designed to be finished. Each year should add a figure, a planting, a ceremony. In fifty years it might hold a hundred roses, each telling a part of Giverny’s story.