Monet’s Muse – Latour Marliac, France

Fading memory jolted by the recent posts on beautiful Giverny by Museum Mum and MumsGoneTo, I realised I hadn’t yet written about our visit last summer to the birthplace of the waterlily as we now know it, and the inspiration behind Monet’s famous Nympheas…

Bory Latour Marliac was a world travelling horticulturalist, initially intrigued by bamboo. Still today the Jardins du Latour Marliac are framed by the varieties he brought back from his travels (these gardens are home to one of the largest collections in the Northern Hemisphere), but tropical lilies and lotus also caught his eye, and he brought a few of them back too…

He was so entranced that he managed to hybridise them with the humble Northern Waterlily (the original version of which is only ever white) and what you can see at the gardens today (all 300 variations) is the result of some very successful and completely colourful experimentation, giving complete meaning behind the phrase that France is the birthplace of the waterlily!

The fact that Latour also happened to be good friends with Claude Monet, who went on to order a number of nympheas from his old pal to put in a big old pond in the grounds of the house that he had just bought, is something a few of us know about (not that Claude was secretive about it!), but we have Latour to thank perhaps for being Monet’s Muse when it came to these colourful aquatic plants – his famous paintings might have featured daffodils or something instead if it hadn’t have been for him, and I have never really been all that fond (sorry!).

There’s something really lovely about a wander here (I have always been a lily fan – my wedding invites even featured a lotus flower – we got engaged in Vietnam), but the fact that the gardens still retain much of their original shape (they were opened in 1875), and many of the original  cultivation bowls sit perched at the edge of the ornamental pools gives it a distinct personality.

This is a garden that won’t blur into the greenery of many other unexciting botanic gardens I have visited in my time. In fact I would go so far as rating it in my top three. First place has to go to my favourite – Kew (of course – which incidentally was the first place that LaTour sent his first successful Nymphea hybrid too back in 1887), followed by South Africa’s Kirstenbosch, and this – Jardin Latour Marliac takes third for now as it’s so unique.

Don’t miss the giant lilies in the glasshouses, and the night blooming tropical beauties. If you are spending the whole day (which you should) then walk around the main lake and visit the homage to Monet’s Japanese bridge – which is a lot blinking steeper than Monet’s green version, and quite difficult with a pushchair (but amusing to watch if you are not the one pushing it!).

Despite the abundance of water, it’s a surprisingly child friendly place with a good few open spaces to enjoy,  and excellent chocolat chaud at the cafe with neighbouring lovely restaurant (which incidentally, I spent ages trying to conjure up a decent amount of my rubbish school level French, only to be answered by a very home counties accent from a lovely English girl on work experience. She nodded kindly when I said “you must have thought my French really terrible”)…

Don’t also miss the tiny but sweet museum to the right of the cafe where you can learn a lot more about Monsieur Marliac and his picturesque past time.

I needn’t add that it’s a photographer’s dream destination, I think you can judge that for yourself by the amount of pictures in this post.

I will finish by saying La Tour Marliac was named a “Jardin Requarble” by the French Ministry of Culture and Communications back in 2004. Given that it’s been there since 1875, and the fact it really doesn’t look like it’s changed all that much, I can only say I am surprised it’s taken them so long…

Latour-Marliac , 47110 Le Temple-sur-Lot, France