The gardens of Baudy

Before any project, the ground already held its own witnesses. On the rear façade, an enormous wisteria, so wide that no single photograph contains it: its knotted arms run above the kitchen door, and it flowers every spring, a little later than the rest, though it is planted on the north side and almost never sees the sun. Giverny News says Angélina Baudy planted it — it would be the oldest living thing in the house.

Higher up, the staircase climbing towards the studio has railings of faux bois: cement moulded into logs, with knots, bark and sawn ends, a gardener’s craft practised from the Second Empire to the Belle Époque. The risers are of the same stuff, laid like cordwood. A piece of period décor, still in place.

In the 19th century vines grew well north of the Loire — even on the hill of Montmartre. At Giverny it was the hillside that carried them, held up by low terrace walls; they gave a light wine, closer to plonk than to a grand cru. Phylloxera, at the end of the century, put an end to these vineyards, and the terraces went back to scrub.

The pleasure garden took them over. With the first plant catalogues and the great glasshouses of the World’s Fairs, a fashion once reserved for the elite spread to everyone, and the rose became its queen. The house’s booklet credits the birth of the Baudy garden to the nearness of Monet’s and to a nurseryman down on the plain: a garden made for pleasure rather than to a plan, with resting places on each level to settle down palette in hand, and an “ocean of roses” that, from May to June, spilled down to the street.

The terraced rose garden visitors walk today was recreated between 1989 and 1991 by Christian Jeanney. It keeps that spirit: winding paths overrun by daisies, valerian and St John’s wort, stone steps losing themselves up the hillside, climbing roses scaling the trees.