Some of the most iconic works of French Impressionism might not have been painted if Claude Monet's neighbors in Giverny had their way.

Plans for the lily pond raised objections from suspicious farmers who feared the artist's exotic plants would poison the water supply and kill their cattle.

Monet eventually won the right to divert the river Epte to create his lily pond, capturing waterlilies in such masterpieces as the Agapanthus Triptych of 1916–1919. 

“Not everybody knows quite what a serious and unbelievably knowledgable gardener and horticulturalist Monet was ... he himself thought he was a better gardener than painter,” says Ann Dumas, a curator at London's Royal Academy.

Documents from the dispute are part of the upcoming exhibition, Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse. On view first at the Cleveland Museum of Art in October 2015 before moving to the Royal Academy, January 30 to April 20, 2016, the exhibition looks at the transformation of gardening from the preserve of the aristocracy to a more middle-class pursuit, reports the Daily Mail.