RE: Italian med gardens

Dear Med people,
Well, I was clearly called in, and  here is my answer.
Ninfa is the garden where I was horticulturally born, if I can say so. I started working there when I was 18, and I kept collaborating with the garden for 16 years. You know what they say about first loves, you never forget them. Ninfa is more than that for me: it is my youth, my enthusiasm, it is where my eyes opened to what became THE dimension of my life. My first and beloved doggy is buried  there, under a Magnolia liliflora "Nigra"...  Ninfa is magic, and beauty, and the quality dreams are made of, that irrupted in my life and changed it for ever. It was different then, also, more garden  and less wildlife-park oriented, there were thousands of plants that have disappeared since. The family was still there, and the charm of its members, the noble heritage of their century old story helped creating this particular  atmosphere that  you could sense in the garden. Have you read "The garden of Finzi-Contini"? Bassani, the writer, told me once that he had been inspired by Ninfa in writing this book. It was a hidden retreat, a secret place where you cold feel the mysterious ways of History. The medieval ruins scattered throughout the garden, and all the ancient legends told by old gardeners in my mind conjured up with the academic, scientific notions I was gatehring through document research and serious university studies to recreate the echoes of a lost world.  But this melancholic mood was then swept away by the simple, powerful  truth of the plants life, that I was then learning, as I saw climbers conquering the ruins and flowers blooming among the old walls, while I  repeated to myself, like a poem, their  (then) unfamiliar names...
Today the garden is open to the public, and it has payed a toll to its increasing popularity. Paths were widened, maintenance demanding areas were simplified, a stress was put on animal life to attract schools, and all the rest you can imagine (big parking, shop areas, picnic areas, weddings...). But even though a big part of its former charms has gone now, it is still a wonderful place to go, and its atmosphere is so powerfully pervading, that I bet it would keep its enchanting power even if half of its plants disappeared.
Only one thing I have to object to Bill, that is the definition of it as a Mediterranean garden. Ninfa has  very peculiar climate and soil condition.  There is abundance of water, thanks to the many streams and springs, and the weather is incredibly rainy. It really looks like England in many ways. Actually it never experiences the long droughts and implacable heath that we all have to stand. It is on the edge of what used to be the Pontine Marshes, and it still enjoys  half-marsh conditions. The soil is just a dream, the dream of every gardener: it is fertile, soft, black, smells good, 100% humus and leafmould, everything grows there at the best of its potential.
All those who garden on the stony, dry shores of the Mediterranean Sea would probably give an arm to have that soil. And in fact, if you look at its plant list, it tells you all about the growing conditions: it includes japanese Acer, Magnolia, Camellias, Prunus, Malus, Betula, Fagus, Cornus, Syringa, that make the bones of the garden, besides roses and cypresses.
 
Landriana is the other garden (other than the American Academy) that I take care of now, and it is one of the great contemporary gardens of Italy.  But I will tell you about it next time, because it would take me too long, as it is a big horticultural  challenge and a collector's paradise. This has a real Med climate, it is 4 km from the sea, the soil is a nightmarish mix of clay and sterile sand, the weather enjoys sea winds, droughts, implacable sun.
Until next time, you can have a look at its (old-fashioned) website at www.giardinidellalandriana.it, and even though the photographs are not extraordinary, and the language is only Italian, have a first encounter with its collection of thousand of plants, it garden rooms, the lake and the wonderful valleys: the valley of  Old fashioned roses, and that od Rosa chinensis "Mutabilis".
Ciao,
 
Alessandra
 

Alessandra Vinciguerra
Superintendent of the Gardens
American Academy in Rome
Via Masina,5
00183 Roma Italy
Tel. 39-6-5846444

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