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Forthcoming Events:
March 14th - Vivaio Marghariti and AGM – Chiusi (5 euros booking fee)
10.30 – Meet at the Vivaio of Marghariti at Torre Chiusine.
11.00 – There will then be a guided tour of the Vivaio followed by
12.30 – Lunch at La Fattoria, Lago de Chiusi.
14.00 – Return to the Vivaio for a lecture by Enzo Margheriti on Australian plants suitable for our Mediterranean conditions.
15.00 – Annual General Meeting.
For those wishing to stay overnight accomodation is available at La Fattoria. Members should make their own reservations (tel 0578 21407).
March 15th – For those staying overnight there will be a visit to a nearby garden organised by Enzo Margheriti.
April – A visit to the Adriatic Coastal area – Abruzzo/Molise.
May 16th – La Torrechia – La Landriana – Nympha
The provisional programme is for a meeting at La Tenuta Torrechia at Cisterna di Latino for a visit to the gardens followed by a picnic lunch in the grounds. In the afternoon, a 30km drive for a tour of the gardens at La Landriana at Tor San Lorenzo. For those wishing to stay overnight, there will be a conducted tour next morning of Nympha.
Spring 2008 Visit to Provence
The Provence Branch is inviting us to participate in a visit to gardens over four days in the Provencal region of Southern France in April or May. Transport and accommodation could possibly be provided. For anybody that might be interested I can send more details: let me know with preferred dates.
Past events:
A visit to Verona
On Friday, 8th June a small group of MGS members met in Parona, a few kilometres outside Verona, to visit gardens in the area. These visits were organised by Luigi Sperati Ruffoni and Giuseppe Ridulfo.
Luigi Sperati’s garden.
Our first visit was to Luigi's terraced garden nearby where, over the past 30 years, he has redeveloped his land (previously a vineyard) into what has become, for the most part, a mediterranean dry garden. On the drystone-walled terraces plants such as rosemary, lavender, santolina, hypericum, oleander, cistus, and many varieties of trees including cypress and Judas trees, all grow happily due to the microclimate created by the presence not far away of Lake Garda.
Garden of Villa Poggi at Affi.
After refreshments in the garden with Luigi's family we drove a short distance to the small village of Affi, where we lunched in the Fratelli Poggi Winery. After lunch we made our way on foot to Villa Poggi where Dr Francesco Monicelli gave a talk on the historical background of the house and garden, situated beneath the rocky crests of Monte Moscal. This was followed by the garden visit, accompanied by the two Signore Poggi and their head gardener, Signor Aldo, who guided us through the extensive parkland planted with a variety of majestic trees, many of which are l20 years old.
View from the Giusti garden in Verona.
On Saturday morning our first visit was to the 16th century world-famous Italianate Giusti Garden in the centre of Verona, where we climbed to the belvedere to look down on the city and could admire the fountains, the parterre and the intricate maze in the garden itself. The garden is very well maintained and is a welcome retreat from the bustling city. Verona is, of course, one of Italy's most interesting and beautiful cities, with its Roman amphitheatre known as the Arena, its churches, museums, squares, and pedestrian areas in the centre where many exclusive shops are to be found.
Garden of Villa Grezzana.
Later, at the Villa Arvedi at Grezzana, we were met by a family member, Paolo Arvedi, who gave us historical background on the villa and on his family, who have owned it since 1824. From the first-floor terrace at the front of the villa we admired the splendid Italianate garden, effective in its purity through the use of limited plant species, mostly cypress, and 250-year-old Buxus sempervirens. The avenue leading to the house is lined with olive trees, behind which are lines of neatly pruned persimmon trees. On the estate, again thanks to the proximity of the lake, citrus fruits (lemons and citron, though not oranges) can be grown and many flowering caper plants were tumbling out of the stone walls. The Villa produces its own olive oil using steam-powered machinery, and makes liqueurs from the lemons and citron.
Our visit ended in the grotto adjoining the villa - a most original setting for the excellent buffet lunch we enjoyed before saying goodbye to Luigi and Giuseppe who had made this a most interesting and special visit.
Dorisanne Agrò and Keay Pierconti
A weekend in Umbria
Italy's Branch Head of the Mediterranean Garden Society, Carol Smith, organised her last group meeting on the 2nd and 3rd of September, 2006. The President of the Mediterranean Garden Society, Cali Doxiadis, had come from Greece and met many of us for the first time.
Our first garden visit was at the home of Janet and Alan Bell, high above the town of Tuoro sul Trasimeno and overlooking the lake. Their garden is on several levels. Retaining walls, constructed deep into the ground to prevent erosion, also provide attractive and practical hardscape. Annuals in attractive terracotta pots offer colour when other plants are in summer dormancy. Mediterranean essences have been planted as ground covers and we are greeted by herbs and splendid cascades of prostrate rosemary hanging over walls. An impressive row of large potted olive trees flanks the house on a paved walkway. We were captivated by three balls of small Ligustrum delavayanum, grown as topiary trees in a bed planted tightly with a variety of low-growing plants, that add cheer to the staircase landing. Far down, the pool is surrounded by Laurus nobilis hedges with a wood behind, and in the far distance there is the lake vista. Tight plantings of euphorbias, salvias, thymes, oreganos, rosemaries and lavenders, with a potted lemon to add height and colour, delighted us as we climbed the steep steps on the other side of the house.
We then drove to the town of Tuoro to visit Sharon Haligrimson's small garden. Three years ago she called in Sarah Bradpiece to create a garden behind her recently purchased townhouse, in what was a depressing rectangle with a few olive trees and rocks and weeds overlooking the stadium parking lot. Sarah had walls made to add movement, transplanted the trees that grew where the swimming pool was to be made, and had the soil from the excavation piled up to make an embankment which, now planted with trees and shrubs, hides the parking lot. The area between the house and the pool was filled with truckloads of good soil and the plants growing here are splendid. A white Lantana montevidensis 'Alba' blankets the ground around an olive. A rosemary hangs elegantly over a stone wall like a tidy thick fringe, while lavenders have been neatly trimmed after flowering; thyme creeps between a flagstone path flanking the pool. The garden is a small private peaceful oasis; the outside world seems miles away.
After lunch at Carol Smith's house we drove to Cortona, to visit Thomas and Martina Reinhardt's amazing and unique garden (read about it in TMG 46). Their Amaranthus collection is amazing, including a strange one called 'Joseph's Coat', which doesn't seed. The Reinhardts' new projects are many. A large area is being excavated to make a pool whose water will be recycled and used throughout the garden following an innovative French plan. Beyond the original garden labyrinth with its high walls of dense Canna, a wide path lined with mulched beds and newly planted perennials leads to the hillside where new stone pathways wandering among the olives that create cooling dappled shade for both plants and visitors. Everything seems to be in harmony. The endless assortment of plants, including roses, that have been put in already promise a new spirited garden under the olives that will be mature in a year or two. This is without a doubt one of Europe's most innovative and interesting gardens; and it is still at its beginning.
On Sunday morning we spent time browsing about the comfortable, friendly and hospitable garden of Daniela Fè d'Ostiani, made from scratch on the hill overlooking the southern shore of the lake over a period of more than 30 years. There are several garden rooms on different levels, planted with a backbone of mainly native plants that grow easily and well here above the lake. "In the springtime," Daniela said, "the garden is flooded with tulips, daffodils and hundreds of other bulbs." Euphorbia characias make their statements with their elegant blue-grey leaves, self-seeding freely. In a lower enclosed secret garden space a huge Rosa milligani grows through a high hedge and at the time of our visit was providing a spectacular show with its hips turning colour. A R. banksiae peeps out of the top of an Acer. After passing through a shady wooded area where water runs from the well so that cats, dogs and wild animal visitors can always have a drink, we suddenly came to a mesmerising view. The steep bank and paths lead down to a small formal garden enclosed in hedges and white roses. The centres of the parterres of low-clipped lavender have been planted delightfully and originally with bright blue ageratum, sharing space with lettuces, cabbages and Swiss chard. A large terracotta pot in the centre sported a topiary ball of box. In the distance Lake Trasimeno with its islands was framed by the hills beyond.
Lunch was served on a lake ferry-boat, chartered entirely for our party, and soon we debarked on the island of Polvese where a guide was waiting to take us around. We walked high on a hill to what had once been a stone quarry and where, a century ago, a series of pools had been made, planted with Nymphaea. Our next stop was Isola Maggiore where we had an hour to browse. Back on the ferry, we sipped Vin Santo and ate the classic Tuscan cantuccini dipping biscuits. We presented Carol with a large hand-painted bowl of Deruta pottery as a token of how much we have all appreciated her dedicated six years to make our Italian Branch active and interesting.
Helene Pizzi
Branch Head, Jon Parker
With the retirement of Carol Smith, Jon Parker has become Branch Head, necessarily and ably assisted and 'directed' by his wife Astrid. Jon and Astrid have lived in Italy for the past 19 years, during which time they have moved house five times and on each occasion have had the challenge of creating a garden from scratch.
Jon writes: The accompanying photos of our previous garden at Terricciola (PI), after six years, were taken by Astrid for an art exhibition in Hobart, Tasmania.
Being a Villa, it had at least some of the structure of a garden of the long-ago past which over time had become totally abandoned and overgrown. We had to fell many trees to give light and air before we could proceed to plant. In front of the house we created a parterre and more formal garden, in keeping with the Palladian style of the house. The land then fell away steeply and on the first level, above a Roman Bath water feature (in other words a swimming pool), Astrid created a gravel garden full of heat- and sun-loving plants. Below this we landscaped a zigzag of interlinking terraces, the banks of which were heavily planted with teucrium, berberis, cotoneaster, bottle brush, phlomis, cistus and iris. A vertical dimension was given by agaves, mimosas, almonds and pomegranates. In the valley an avenue of cypresses led the eye to the hills beyond.
Some two years ago we moved to a property near the fortified town of Lari in the Pisan hills 20km from the coast. The old house needed total restoration, which took a year, and no such thing as a garden existed. We sit on a relatively small platform on the side of a hill with very steep inclines above and around, which were for the most part covered with Robinia pseudoacacia suckers and brambles. First we had to clear the land, then carve out manageable terraces on the hillside before planting could begin of what are now more than 1,500 trees and shrubs - mostly natives.
As ever, water was the big question. After one or two false starts an adequate water supply was eventually found in the bottom of the valley, and then another 96 meters down in the form of an artesian well. All rainwater is also collected into an ornamental 'lake'.
As the name of the property denotes it was originally, in the late 1600s, the dwelling of the local brickmaker. However, it eventually passed into farmers' hands and became an agricultural property, very much abandoned by the time we took it over, hence the old and unproductive fruit and olive trees that abound. We have continued the tradition and have planted more fruit and olive trees (Lari is one of the principal cherry-producing areas of Italy). However, we have also planted some 200 cypress trees (not only for the traditional Tuscan skyline but more importantly to reinforce the steep banks), many ash, walnut, lime, Robinia pseudoacacia, mimosa and poplar trees, as well as a specimen tree or two for hedging. The shrubs planted for the banks are principally rosemary, teucrium, atriplex and lentisk, and for the hedging bay and Elaeagnus.
Adjacent to the house on the east side Astrid has created a gravel Mediterranean garden including tuffa and brick paths and a simple fountain bubbling from a stone bowl. I should add that after a visit to Filippi's nursery at Mèze, on the occasion of the AGM of the MGS in France, this garden is now splitting at the seams! On the first terrace below the gravel garden we have created our Roman water feature (swimming pool in modern jargon), which looks down on to an intimate valley where sheep graze and give luscious ricotta and pecorino cheese. Around the pool we planted non-fruiting mulberries to give shade. Acting as a setting for the pool, Astrid's herbaceous border is full of alliums, hemerocallis, agapanthus, achillea, gaura and Verbena bonariensis, framed behind by the rose 'Buff Beauty'. The whole is enclosed by a rapidly growing bay hedge. |
