Italian romanticism starts in the garden: oversized squashes in September, fragrant orange blossom year-round, the drama of a green cypress, and lightness of a single olive tree.
Inside courtyard walls at Torrecchia Vecchia (an hour’s train ride south from Rome), master garden designer Dan Pearson added masses of wildflowers including daisies, nigella, and poppies (sown every year from seed) to surround a raised rectangular pool filled with water lilies.
Symmetry, Geometry, and Repetition
Photograph by Huw Morgan courtesy of Dan Pearson Studio.
For more of this landscape, see Paradise Found: Designer Dan Pearson’s Modern Garden for a Medieval Castle.
Hardscaping First
Photograph from Milanese Minimalism: A House by Raboni Architetti on Remodelista.
A key characteristic of the Italian garden is the hardscaping: gravel promenades, piazza-like courtyards, water fountains, and statuary lay the foundation for trees, flowers, and vegetable beds.
Respect History
From the mountains and countryside to the cities and coasts of Italy, history–art history–is ubiquitous.
Plant Evergreens
Villa Lena, an artist community and vacation rental in Tuscany, is shrouded in towering Italian cypress, boxwood, and juniper trees.
Italian gardens, like those of Mediterranean neighbors Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, take advantage of the climate and grow plentiful citrus for use in everyday cooking.
Grow Citrus Trees
Two garden benches face one another in a shady spot beneath a pergola at Torrecchia Vecchia, designed by Dan Pearson.
Photograph by Huw Morgan.
Create a Garden Room
Cook Dinner Outdoors
Gamberoni rossi, or Mediterranean jumbo prawns, on a slate-topped outdoor stove at a vacation home in Bonassola, Italy, on the Mediterranean coast.
Photograph by Meredith Swinehart.
Don’t Waste a Good Terrace
The terrace is a central feature of Italian architecture. Do as the Italians do and make the best of your balcony, porch, or deck with climbing vines and fragrant flowers.
To find the closest arborist in an Italian town, knock on your neighbor’s door. At Casa Poggio in the Sabine Hills 30 miles north of Rome, new owners took over the property with 130 olive trees without any knowledge of how to care for them.
Enlist Your Community
An apartment in Vernazza, Italy, one of the Cinque Terre’s five seaside towns, trades a doorway step for garden space.
Grow Anywhere
Photograph by Alexa Hotz.