Long before Mendel’s work was known, Bory Latour-Marliac (1830-1911) engineered daring water lily couplings with consummate skill, meticulous care and acute observation. His previously unrecorded letters reveal a horticultural world wide web into which he launched his finest hardy hybrids. From the outset he corresponded with Japan, South-East Asia and the United States. The earliest international recognition of his hybrids came in the form of a gold medal at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris attended by millions including Monet. Monet had moved to Giverny in 1883, his first order to Latour-Marliac in 1894 for a range of water and bog plants included lotus and water lilies. It could be argued that the plants from Latour-Marliac’s nursery were the genesis of Monet’s creation of a unique water landscape, now much imitated and copied – how many ‘Monet’s Garden’ installations have you seen? Caroline Holmes will use this presentation to navigate primary sources and delve the depths in an exploration of the history, science, networking and sheer pleasure of Latour-Marliac. The good news is that like Monet’s garden, the Latour-Marliac nursery thrives today. This presentation includes immersion in Monet’s monumental water lily panels at Paris’s Musée de l’Orangerie painted and donated by him to reflect on and commemorate the appalling loss of life during World War One. Today we can follow in the footsteps of both Monet and Latour-Marliac taking their visitors to their respective ponds in Giverny and Le Temple-sur-Lot to admire and discuss their blooms.

Date: Wednesday July 7th
Time: 6pm
Venue: Online
Price: $12 AGHS & Friends RBGV members, $15 non-members

Trybooking link – https://www.trybooking.com/BQWPH

Booking note: If you choose to attend online a Zoom link will be sent to you separately after bookings close

Caroline Holmes is a Garden Historian, author of 12 books including ‘Monet at Giverny’ and ‘Impressionists in their Gardens’. She was keynote speaker at the International Water Gardens Conference held at Giverny in 2019. Course Director for University of Cambridge ICE, accredited lecturer for The Arts Society and has spoken on every continent except Antarctica. Her design consultancies range from Human Renaissance gardens surrounding Notre Dame-de-Calais to devising the planting for The Poison Garden within The Alnwick Garden in Northumberland. Academic but not dry, she likes to sift the humour from the humus. www.horti-history.com