The Andalucia Branch of the MGS

Andalucia is a huge area with some of the sunniest, hottest or driest, even windiest, parts of Europe which pose many challenges to gardening. Gardeners in Andalucia are an international lot from all parts of the world, working and caring for all sorts of gardens, large and small, from historic gardens with Moorish influences, large agricultural estates, to gardens of modern holiday homes. 

Andalucia Branch Head is Sibylle Mattern: read her biography here. Members and prospective members please contact Sibylle with questions, ideas, suggestions. 

The photographs at the top of this page show views of Andalucia during winter: Landscape with cork oak; Plantings of aloe on the Mediterranean public coastal path, Marbella; View of the Alhambra, Granada; Almond tree blossom in February; Gardens of the Alcazar in Cordoba; Landscape with asphodels (Photos Sibylle Mattern)

Versión española

Forthcoming Events

Saturday 31 May - Villanueva del Rosario
A second visit to the arboretum-garden in Villanueva del Rosario to view the spring flowering.

Saturday 11 October - Benahavis
Annual meeting of the Andalucia branch
We meet in Sibylle’s garden in Benahavís. A Plant exchange is planned: Please bring your surplus cuttings or seedlings of whatever you have grown throughout the year.

Past Events

April 2025 - Gaucin
Gardeners in the Mist - visit to Richard McCaie´s garden

As many of us followed the winding road up into the clouds of Gaucin we had to trust our GPS and the detailed instructions provided but it was worth it for what was waiting for us. A glorious example of planting full of contrasts, textures, shapes and colours emerged above the clouds among the peaks of the Sierra del Hacho mountain range.

Some of us had come almost 4 hours from Almería (and, before that, Brisbane!) and it was great to welcome new members to one of our events and to discuss how growing conditions vary significantly across Andalucia with challenges associated with only being able to tend a garden some of the year.

With an elevation of 500m, the house was built with a view to protecting it from the prevailing West winds and the garden benefits from slightly milder conditions than in the village at 612m allowing Richard to grow plants like plumeria that would not survive up in the village. However the soil is extremely alkaline and importing soil was vital to establish the garden and support healthy plant growth.

Richard’s garden was a joy to behold and the rains even stopped to allow us to explore the garden. Key to the structure of the garden were the pruned wild olive trees whose soft curves mirrored the tree tops further down in the valley and created a harmonious rhythm to the garden which was ebullient cottage garden style with contrasting colour and form.

The structure of the garden encourages a sense of discovery. The winding pathways meant that you don´t see the whole space in one go (apart perhaps from the porch above the garden) and you feel that you are exploring multiple new areas of around 5 by 10 metres. Shrubs of 2 metres tall eg the pruned wild olives (Olea oleaster, acebuche), Bottlebrushes (Callistemon citrinus), Pistacia lentiscus (mastic) have been used to great effect to block the view from one area to another.

Many of us who usually favour shrubs and waterwise gardening, came away with a resolution to incorporate more bulbs in our planting as these were a striking feature to the garden –favourites were anemones, Babiana stricta, Watsonia borbonica and fresias that had self seeded and hybridised.  Impressively, especially to those of us who are still getting to grips with keeping seedlings alive, Richard has grown many of his plants and bulbs from seed. Richard was rightly particularly proud of the Paeonia broteri which he has grown from seed collected from the mountain behind the house.

Other plants that we added to our wish list were: Aloe plicatilis aka kumara plicatilis or the fan-aloe, Agave stricta Sam Dyck, Streptosolen jamesonii and Dasylirion longissimum.   

Finally and as always, there was keen interest in the ‘back of house’ working parts of the garden with lively discussions over the challenges of automatic irrigation and compost - a couple of approaches were to break vegetation down in a lidded rollable tub before adding to an open pile or to just add waste into the borders hidden under the plants let it break down in situ.  

A huge thanks to Richard and Charlotte for the wonderful hosting and all the advice. It was a day to remember for many of us.

March 2025 - Málaga
Visit to Jardín Botánico - Histórico La Concepción

As a change from visiting member gardens, we chose to explore a historic public garden - Jardín Botánico - Histórico La Concepción. This garden was initially a private garden created in 1855, with more than fifty thousand plants, three thousand tropical, subtropical, autochthonous, endemic and agricultural species, varieties and cultivars. Happily for us, it was turned over to the public 30 years ago and we are able to enjoy it now.

The purpose of the visit was to see the wisteria avenue in bloom however record breaking levels of rain in Andalucia (and most of Spain) meant that the visit was delayed by weeks. Quite apart from it risking being a soggy visit, the flowering was also delayed. So we were a little anxious arriving in case the much-awaited sight would not be on show. Luckily, after four weeks of rain, we were rewarded with a rain of wisteria blooms.

Built by the Heredia family, the arbour is one of the most beautiful iron pergolas to be found anywhere in Spain, twelve roots of Wisteria sinensis originally planted by the Loring-Heredia family back in 1857 now climb over the surrounding ficuses and palms up to heights of almost 20 metres. Its gentle aroma and bunches of lilac flowers create a magical atmosphere.

We were guided around the historic, mainly shaded part of the garden by the wonderfully knowledgeable Javier who especially highlighted the historic elements that we might have missed in favour of admiring the planting. Among particular favourites were La Exedra -  a whispering bench where, at one end of the curved bench, you can hear secrets whispered at the other end.

Beyond the wonders of the wisteria, further natural highlights were a sea of clivia surrounding an area where, historically, the young members of the family would put on shows in the 19th Century, some prolific ficus trees (Ficus marcophylla), an avenue of shade giving plane trees (Platanus orientalis ) curving over the pathway and an impressive grove of bamboos.

While we only saw a part of the garden we loved the really tranquil and shaded atmosphere which must have been a balm for the original owners who mainly lived there in summers and winters.  A huge thank you to Jose Alba for organising it and his son (also Jose!) for being our host on this visit.

January 2025 - Alhaurín El Grande
Visit to Andrew Sloan’s garden

With reducing water levels and droughts that are familiar to most members of the Mediterranean Garden Society, many of us are not only looking to find sustainable ways to garden but are also investigating changing the plants that we choose to garden with.

This is a trend that Andrew Sloan identified and adopted perhaps ahead of the curve over 10 years ago. Having built a more traditional, irrigated garden in Alhaurin el Grande, nestled in a valley behind Malaga in Andalucia with irrigation when he first moved in almost 30 years ago, he made a radical change and switched the irrigation off in 2011. Once almost all the plants had died on his terraced raised beds, he started out all over again.

The first point of call was bringing in and mixing in sand to improve drainage (from the existing clay) to create a habitat more suited a totally waterwise garden. This intervention has paid off in spades (forgive the pun) - not only reducing the twice weekly task of watering to once every 3 weeks but also by creating a stunning garden full of colour and contrasts.

While the garden has many interesting succulents, agave and cacti, for example Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi, Sedum nussbaumerianum, Agave victoriae-reginae, the Aloes were firmly the stars and we were lucky enough to visit as they were blooming.

Long flowering (up to 6 weeks) and, unlike agave, they do not die once they have flowered. Some specimens come from far and wide – perhaps most notably Aloe debrana a rare variety from Ethiopia and Aloe dorathea from Tanzania.

Many of the stronger reds and orange leaf colours that were on show were as a result of water stress – Andrew treads a fine line between treating them mean to create the sunset glows and caring for them enough so that they survive – too much water encourages greener foliage.

The passion for plants shone through the whole visit and it is no wonder that Andrew welcomes many groups into his garden regularly to introduce them to the joys of aloes. He freely shares his knowledge of propagation and growing from seed – many of which have come from trips with the MGS.

Beyond aloes, we also were able to walk through a wonderful olive grove with trees topping 800 years old that still produce hand harvested crops for oil. This grove includes a fascinating oddity – essentially two ancient trees grafted many centuries ago to create one magnificent specimen - one of which is thought to belong to the times when the Moors ruled Andalucia (between the 8th and 15th Century).

A further experimental approach to exploring all aspects of gardening was also evident in Andrew´s adoption of cultivating in line with the lunar calendar – an approach initially tested as part of a 10 year experiment by Rudolf Steiner in 1925. This approach guides the timing for all activities within the garden – pruning when the moon is waning and planting especially root plants when the moon is waxing or growing. He even extends this to deciding when to have his hair cut!

The visit was a wonderful and thought provoking experience for those who were lucky enough to attend and most went away with a new understanding and appreciation for aloes – and a resolution to incorporate more of them into our own gardens.  Who knows, some of us may also be testing out lunar gardening as well.

Text by Katrin Schlenzka, photos by Sibylle Mattern and Katrin Schlenzka

November 2024 - Malaga
Pepe visit

The day we visited the Jardin del Rosario was full of mists and mellow fruitfulness as the Keats poem says and it felt like we were transported to an arboretum in the UK. Yet here was this magnificent estate about 45 minutes from Malaga and around 700m above sea level. At this time of the year (beginning of November) the trees were naturally the stars - though with about 22,000 different plants from around 5,000 species and varieties there is something to appreciate at all times of the year.

The garden (there was some lively debate over lunch about if it was a park, a garden or an estate!) was clearly created by a passionate and knowledgeable plant collector, Jose Alba Garcia who combines the creativity and sensibility of the artist with the rigour and methods of a scientist. It is hard to think that this garden, with all its sense of heritage and permanence, didn´t exist 40 years ago. Jose´s passion and knowledge shone through during what was, in fact, a short walk but that was extended as we lingered and heard the story behind many of the amazing specimens in the garden.

We also saw the scientific side of the project in the form of the groundbreaking approach to plant classification and location that was inspired by his engineering expertise - with many thanks to his son Alfonso who patiently accompanied us with the tablet identifying plants as we excitedly encountered new varieties.

The whole visit was totally inspiring - even for those of use with more modest plots – I think we all came away with a favourite tree to fit into our existing gardens! Some stand out plants that members loved were the Cercis canadensis forest pansy, Celtis occidentalis and the Ginkgo was stunning in all its autumn foliage.

We would like to extend our thanks to our very gracious hosts who gave is an incredibly warm welcome, plenty to think about and a wonderful lunch!

Text by Katrin Schlenzka

September 2024
First Visit of the Branch of the Mediterranean Garden Society
On a windy and hot day twelve members of the newly revived Andalucían branch of the Mediterranean Garden Society gathered at the home of our branch head, Sibylle Mattern, whose garden she vividly describes in issues TMG 115 and TMG 116 of the journal. 

True followers of dry-gardening know that the end of a hot summer is a good time to see a garden for a learning experience. Every garden looks good in springtime, but at the end of a harsh summer?  Furthermore, this is our third year of drought here, and added to this, Sibylle’s garden, being on a hilltop, is exposed to wind from every direction. Her garden is cleverly designed to include protective pockets of shelter and shade, while still celebrating the wonderful 360 degree vista. In addition, Sibylle had ceased watering in some areas so we could see the true survival capabilities of some plants.

As to be expected there was some ‘plant envy’ as well, when some interesting plants from Australia and South Africa catching our attention. I was particularly attracted by the look and tactile feel of Calothamnus quadrifidus, commonly known as the one-sided bottle brush, from Western Australia. 

Sibylle, her husband Frank and garden designer Paul Neaum, were gracious hosts as we explored the garden and then shared lunch. Friendships were rekindled as some members knew each other from meetings arranged by Lindsay Blyth some years ago. There were also some members for whom this was their first meeting, as well as four ‘garden assistants’ as long-suffering partners described themselves. The gardening knowledge ranged from expert level to those who are novices in mediterranean gardening. The sharing of knowledge was generous; we all left with new ideas for our own gardens. Our next meeting will be held in another member’s garden during, where we hope to see more members; accompanying ‘garden assistants’ also welcome!

Text: Sonja Tiscenko, photos @ThomasSchlenzka

Sibylle Mattern
Sibylle joined the MGS with the aim to minimize mistakes after having started to create her own Mediterranean garden on the Costa del Sol, Spain. She is a biologist (molecular genetics) by training but has been gardening in Germany since her childhood. When she is not in her German or Spanish gardens, she spends her free time looking after her breeding horses or travelling for wildlife photography.

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