Jean-Claude Ellena began the Hermès "Jardin" series of fragrances in 2003 when his brief was selected from a call for proposals on the theme of the Mediterranean Sea.

[4] For the brand, creating its own perfumery laboratory and naming a top-tier perfumer like Ellena to head it gave Hermès the chance to develop a new aesthetic cohesion to its collection and new credibility with consumers.

Inspired by Ellena’s walk through a grove of mango trees with green fruit in an island garden on the Nile (a scouting trip in search of possible ingredients around which to construct the fragrance),[5] the final version of Jardin sur le Nil contains notes of green mango, lotus, hyacinth, grapefruit, bulrush, calamus, sycamore, and incense.

[8][9] In the Los Angeles Times, Denise Hamilton described it as "The fragrance that catapulted green mango into the olfactory mainstream" with a "mouth-watering tart fruit note set noses everywhere aquiver.

[1] In 2005, Chandler Burr published a New Yorker piece describing Ellena's arrival at Hermès and the initial essais for Un Jardin sur le Nil.