Northern Italy Mediterranean Escape
An organic feel is created throughout the garden with soft borders of grasses and herbaceous perennials. The relaxed, natural effect provides movement, contrasting against the more rigid geometry of boxwood hedges, hard surfacing and raised garden beds.
A walkway made of timber leads you to a casual outdoor dining area that is surrounded by lush planting and anchored by a large steel pergola. Pencil-thin cypress trees tower beside the structure and are spotted throughout the garden adding height, a sense of strength, and continuity.
Wicker woven garden beds containing aromatic and cut flowers add a formal, structured element that provides linear corridors for you to wonder through as you explore the property.
It’s the rustic nature of the materials like the wicker beds, dry stone and aging timber that adds to the organic, relaxed atmosphere of the garden. The layered planting effect of greens, greys and touches of pinks and purples creates interest against the sprawling lawn and continues to change throughout the seasons.
Cristiana Ruspa has successfully managed to combine the styles of a formal European garden with an organic, almost meadow-like landscape. It is this, together with the mix of natural materials, that makes this garden a relaxed, Mediterranean escape.
More of this project and others can be see at Giardino Segreto.
Photography: Dario Fusaro.