Street art

Actually I am not a serial poster, but a couple of days ago, I stumbled upon this lovely picture and found it quite an amusing idea worth of developing: foamy white daisies spilling out of a milk can.

The truly beautiful Portuguese

I must confess you my love for giant roses! Now that my gardening grounds are reduced to next to nothing I realised that among all roses in the vast rose world, I truly have a passion for the ramblers and climbers that romp up to more than 10 meters...

The Banksias in all their forms, R. Filipes Kiftsgate, R. Cooperii they all make me weak.

Not that I despise the rest, I still love a lot of other roses, but nothing moves me like the vision of a whole tree or barn clothed in a cloud of blooms.

Giant rambler roses give you the real idea of how incredibly strong and resistant roses are! There is nothing frail and in need of pampering about them! In a couple of years they can literally swallow a garage (and I can only dream of them covering all hideous barns around), bury it under masses of petals and all this without the slightest care from the gardener. No pruning and tying needed there, the canes shoot up in the air and harpoon anything that crosses their way.

 But I would like to talk about quite a special rose today.

The first time I saw it was at the Villa Hanbury on the Ligurian coast in Italy. The villa in itself is worth the trip, since it is a marvellous place perched on the Mortola promontory above the sea  and its botanical garden is charming.

The rose in question is called "Belle Portugaise" and is a climbing Hybrid Tea obtained by Henry Cayeux at the beginning of the XXth century.

Cayeux gives its parentage in Rosa Gigantea x R. Madame Léonie Vienot, though in many catalogues it is R. Gigantea x Reine Marie Henriette.

 

Now the Belle in question at La Mortola covers a pergola of 10 to 15 meters with a single plant! The blooms are rather big, loose with shell pink silky petals. The center is darker in colour and opens to  silvery pink.

As you can see, the flowers are born on unusually long and thin stems which nod graciously as the blooms unfold and become heavier. The buds are particularly long and pointed matching the shape of the light green leaves. The whole plant appears graciously slender in spite of the impressive size.

Now Belle Portugaise was born at the Botanical Garden in Lisbon under the warm sun of Portugal. A daughter of the Rosa Gigantea and with Tea ancestors it is rather tender and not loving of cold climates. Maybe this is the reason it is virtually non existent in most rose catalogues of our days, apart from the most specialised ones. ( Peter Beals of course has it!!!) It is a pity since a Belle Portugaise in full bloom is a vision of absolute elegance.

pergola at Villa Hanbury in early March

Villa Hanbury, La Mortola

 stairs covered bu pergola at Villa Hanbury

Villa Hanbury, view of the gardens


http://www.giardinihanbury.com

"Laissez moi cultiver mon jardin"

                                                        Maze at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire

With these words of Voltaire, Franco Maria Ricci announced 2004 that he quitted his life long oeuvre as an editor of the supremely exquisite FRM magazine and publishing house in order to build the largest maze in the world! Yes, a maze as an coronation of a dream.

Ricci played with the  idea of creating a maze ever since he met the philosopher Luis Borges and he published the lavish book called "the Garden of Polifilo". The philosophical and psychological aspects of creating a labyrinth fascinated him, but it was not until 2004 that he started to give his idea a true body. Hence, the project started to grow with the aid of the architects Davide Dutto and Pier Carlo Bontempi in charge of the buildings which will host Franco Maria Ricci's art collection.

The garden is due to open in 2013 year of the bicentenary of Gianbattista Bodoni - the typographer and inventor of the well known typefaces, who influenced Ricci, at Fontanellato near Parma in Italy.

                                                            Villard de Honcourt, XIII, Ed. Imperiale Paris 1858
                                           (at Biblioteca Escola Tecnica Superior d'Arquitectura, Barcelona, Spain)

                                                                                       Roman Mosaique

A refined aesthete, Ricci has drawn his inspiration from two Roman mosaiques in the Museo del Bardo at Tunis and at the Kunsthistorishes Museum in Viena. The shape is a superposition of two squares of 300 metres each  remembering the plans of the ideal cities of the Renaissance and summs 3 kilometres of alleys.

 

View of the Maze before the constructions were completed

 

  

 Plan of the Maze

                                                                View of the maze with the completed buildings

The planting scheme however is quite surprising for a classical maze. The box and yews typical for all topiaries and plant constructions, have been replaced by fast growing bamboos. 

Before starting this project, Ricci fell under the spell of the Asian grasses and started to grow them on his property near Parma, in order to learn the differences between the various species. The Bambouseraie de Prafrance at Anduze in France (http://www.bambouseraie.com) supplied most of the plants but some were imported directly from China.

After testing several varieties, the P. Bossetii was chosen to form the dense walls of greenery which now romp up to 5 m hight! The effect is beautiful indeed and the oriental note of the delicate leaves is most pleasing.

Rests to know how they will keep the vigour of the bamboo at stake without letting it overgrow and invade the alleys?

And what better tribute could one of the most refined publishers ever bring to Bodoni who inspired his entire career? 

Now Mr Franco Maria Ricci has planted his garden indeed and by doing so, has given "body and life to a dream of a better world" as Russel Page used to say.

                                                                              Phyllostachys Bossetii

   
                                                                              View of the bamboo alleys


In conclusion we can only salute the creation of such an ambitious and poetic landscape project and look forward to its opening next year!                                   

Crisp Whitness for spring gardens

Strolling around my favourite plant nurseries in quest for spring goodies, I came across one of the most professional and well conceived plant catalogues - the RHS online Plant  Shop (www.rhsplants.co.uk)

Besides the accurate and useful plant facts, like growing conditions, dimensions and so on, they have grouped the plants by colours - and the effect is just stunning! You browse pages of cool blues, lavish purples, blazing reds and sizzling hot oranges and yes, an avalanche of cool, porcelain white blooms of any shape and type. 

Sudden images of an impeccable white garden, with pure corollas embedded in dark green foliage crowd in my mind ...

I dream of an airy Wisteria floribunda Alba with long, undulating panicles, of clouds of pure clematis, and here comes a vision of the sheer delight of Clematis  x cartmanii "Joe" and Avalanche, both delicate and clad in white stars. Beautiful beyond bearable levels! Not to say that unlike most Clematis ( which are all desirable of course) the leaves are ferny and decorative by themselves and hardy in mild zones... What could a gardener aspire at more??

 Clematis x cartmanii Avalanche

Clematis x cartmanii Joe

 The immaculate dense spires of Lupinus Noble Maiden

The opulence of the silky peony can hardly find a match in the garden, and here are two real oldies which prove to keep up with any new breed. Both can be found at relatively low prices, compared with more recent varieties, in many catalogues and make a feast in any garden. Festiva Maxima makes a perfect cut flower as well, long lasting and heavenly scented.

 Peonia Lactiflora Krinkled White

 Peonia Lactiflora Festiva Maxima

With its elegant heart shaped leaves, Brunnera macrophylla "Jack Frost" is entitled to stand next to all the other Belles in the Immaculate Garden.

A different kind of love

No, I won't post any rose pictures for this Valentine! Instead I will tell you about a love story for Camellias.

Camellias deserve of course quite a chapter, but here are just some pictures of two of my favourite ones.

I have bought all my Camellias in a blind purchase - that is they were some 20 cm little dwarfs, no flowers to give me a hint of what they would resemble to... I paid them next to nothing at a local store, took them home, pampered them for an year (mind you they are slow growers) and hoped for the best.

Indeed, mature plants can be quite an investment, since they mature slowly and given their reputation for being  finicky and difficult I just wanted to give a try to this little creatures before I would start investing into more established plants.

So after an year this was the result! My little dwarfs covered themselves with flower buds and offered me a generous first flush of blooms.

Useless to say that I cracked and melted away and since then am  totally in love with them.

Countess Lavinia Maggi

An Italian Camellia, in my opinion also one of the best. The plant is very compact, with tiny and very glossy dark green leaves. The blooms are quite thightly packed with tiny variegated petals, the palest mother of pearl pink stained with pink red.

What I really love about Lavinia is its compact growth, since quite a lot of them tend to have a bit of a lanky shape before they arrive to form a big shrub.

It opens well all buds, and very few are aborted before opening as it happens for instance with the C. Mahotiana. The last one has almost too big a blooms and it fails to open properly - or so does mine at least.

 This is actually a picture of the wery first year. Only two blooms, not that full in shape, in fact the stamen are quite exposed, which later did change as you can see in the other picture.

    


This is Debby, actually quite a comon sort, but it actually did get so popular because it is a very reliable, sturdy plant. It blooms for almost two month, with a profusion of pure sherbet pink flowers.

Inspite their apearance, Camellias endure low temperatures, well below 0 Cº if well protected and planted in a sheltered position. The bigest danger comes from sudden frosts that burn the buds since most Camellias start flowering in February and March. In fact they are an unbeatable sight in those cold month of the year.

Like their fellow Azaleeas and Rododendrons, Camellias thrive only in acid soil and hate baking sun and drought. So keep that in mind if you happen to surrender to their exquisite charms!

If this should happen you can spend quite a dangerous amount of time browsing the catalogue of the Pepinieres Stervinou in France. They offer all possible and very professional informations for each variety ( and they have hundreds), like maximun hight, growth habit, flowering period and the max temperature each plant will endure, since there are considerable differences between them.

They send abroad and have a trully unbeatable variety and quality. 

Thou have been warned...

Happy Valentine to you!

Flower Curtain

Since there is little to do in the garden, here is a truly amazing Bougainvillea at the Casa de los Pilatos in Seville, Spain.

Winter Roses

Few plants can claim such a massive interest over the past years as the Winter or Christmas Rose - Helleborus in all it's varieties. From allmost ignored wild beauty it has gained a diva status among our beloved plants.
Though I tend to be a bit sceptical about fashionable plants ( alas sadly enough it happens a lot with dog races as well ) I must admit that the rediscovery of the Winter Rose as a garden plant is one of the most welcome.

Besides it's absolute grace it is one of the very few plants which brave the cold and the snow - announcing us the ever returning miracle of spring! To all garden lovers it reminds that the renaissance of blooms is to come, and that underneath the snow blanket, nature is at work - as busy as ever, it just takes a keener eye to discover it!

for all who want to know more:
http://grahamrice.com/hellebore/species/niger/index.html