Photography by Jim Powell, for Gardenista.
Menorca is an island of stone; viewed from the Mediterranean it rises up on a shelf of rock, interrupted here and there by not-always-accessible sandy coves. Botanically, it is rich in wildflowers.
These Mediterranean quarry gardens have an innately strong sense of place; it would be crazy to try to translate this into an urban show garden setting.
A lemon tree underplanted with native sedum in one of the older hand-cut quarries at Lithica. It is not uncommon to find a small quarry as part of a hamlet, or in a corner of a large property on Menorca; the stone on which the island thrives is marès, a type of porous, sedimentary limestone.
A stage in one corner of a deeper room, its stone extracted mechanically, is now used for concerts. More recent stone extraction (up until the 1990s) was carried out with machinery, leaving deeper, more symmetrical rooms such as the one above, marked with regular, vertical cuts.
Fig growing out of a solid wall of stone, a lesson in drought gardening.
The herbal labyrinth; a new garden developed from an abandoned market garden, with walled protection from the elements. Near the Pomegranate Quarry is a herbal labyrinth, planted not only with culinary herbs but Nicotiana, Malva, and trees such as fig and olive.
With raw materials like these, the hardscaping becomes the garden.
The Medieval Garden, a sanctuary for roses and richer planting. Walking through, with feet firmly on the ground, the main impression is of scent, sound and the sight of 45-degree angle walls, leaning toward the center.
A classic combination of stony walls and ground, with drought-hardy herbage. Shrubs native to the Balearics and shown to their best advantage at Lithica include: hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), myrtle (Myrtus communis), spurge olive (Cneorum tricoccon), and distinctive Euphorbia dendroides.
Work in progress: a dry stone wall typical of the Balearic Islands. There is endless variety and fascination in their finishing: along the top, around an entrance, the steps made on the side of a wall, the small passageways created through them for animals.
A traditional agricultural design used for feeding animals; a bowl would be placed within this shaded, protected nook.
Last but not least, in fact it is one of Lithica’s main draws for people with children, is the non-botanical labyrinth which can be viewed from a great height directly above.