orchard and grew vegetables because he wasn’t as wealthy as you might have thought”. He also kept chickens and there’s a chicken coop and pen there now with lots of chooks clucking and pottering about, completely oblivious to the hordes who come to pay homage to the garden and the painter. As Monet grew richer he turned all his energy to planting flowers, the orchard was replaced with crocuses - but he kept the chickens.
“His wife didn't always agree with him, she was” says James “more bourgeois than her husband and wanted a slightly neater garden which involved chopping down trees she felt grew too close to the house. Monet wanted to keep them. In the end, he won.”
And for that, we should be forever grateful. Colour is everything here, just as it was to Monet. James explains that the design is about the light changing. As the sun passes over the garden it tracks across swathes of plants that change from pink through blue and red and I suddenly see what he means - it's like a giant magical paint brush has daubed a magical palette of colours right in front of me.