164 Gardening in Italy

hi, no i think it's a more complex story than it may seem .Whilst in towns,urban areas etc it is here as elsewhere very common to see well tended gardens as they are generally of a limited size in rural areas it can be more difficult.The first reason is that often people end up with quite considerable bits of land which pose objective difficulties in keeping in order
unless one does nothing else.The climate is also (referring to central Italy) far more extreme than in the UK.where we are the "thermal range" over the year can be up to 50°, with scorching weather in the summer (most areas it is not permitted to hose water due to water shortages) This winter the over 1.5 metres of snow completely destroyed my lovely 1 metre 60 high hedge we are currently cutting whats left down to a few centimetres.The lawn ,seeded with best seed and prepared before seeding after two years is now only wild grasses.In our area no acid requiring plants can survive out of pots rhodedendron,azelia's etc.Add to this, rural traditions which inevitably favour only plants and things you can eat and you have the reason.There are other things too like incredibly proliferous weeds,ferocious insect/animal life (moles destroyed all our artichokes 2 years ago)and the fact that it is very expensive to have garden services on a constant basis.....

Thanks Sebastiano - that all makes perfect sense. I come from a region where water restrictions are now very common place, but our temperature extremes are not quite as bad, certainly in summer we can go as high as 40-45C but winters seldom drop below 5C, though on occasion it can get as low as -2C overnight. Still, nothing near as harsh a climate to contend with. If you find frost hardy plants, chances are they are not heat tolerant, and vice versa.

we have a formal garden.... we have about 60 or so roses which all grow quite happily.... this time of year we have forsythia , flowering cherries and tons of daffodils hyacinths and tulips, violets.... thyme, lavender and lots of different iris..... paonaes are just sprouting.... magnolias and various different perenials... wisteria does well....and as regards lawns.... we just mow weeds grass and all and it remains green.... as long as you do not cut it too low.... all our neighbours have the normal edible garden....but always seem to find room for a few non esential plants.....at this stage the mayflower is out everywhere.... and all the fruit trees are beginning to show blossom..... the one thing here is that you also have flowering fields and hedgrows so that you have an abundance of wild flowers also...

i dont use sprays for any disease or pests... what cannot survive dies... apart from planting new plants i never water... not even tomatoes.... we have have a good supply of bats and ladybirds.... lizards and birds.... the balance is just right ... and i do not want to destroy it...

apart from the flowering side we will soon have fireflies in the evenings...so even at night the garden can look very colorful

neighbours do water their vegetable plots... we have never had a water problem.... we get supplied from the gran sasso.....

if all this sound like paradise ....you might well be right

Hi

We are in Umbria, have a lawn, and grow all sorts of things - the key is to look at what grows well locally and suits the soil you have. Having experimented with various plants, many of them not known here and obtained at vast expense from the garden centre I now concentrate on what the locals grow: rosemary, lavender, roses, wisteria etc.

[QUOTE=Fiona Tankard]Hi

We are in Umbria, have a lawn, and grow all sorts of things - the key is to look at what grows well locally and suits the soil you have. Having experimented with various plants, many of them not known here and obtained at vast expense from the garden centre I now concentrate on what the locals grow: rosemary, lavender, roses, wisteria etc.[/QUOTE]

Hi Fiona,

You might consider trying fynbos, ericas, proteas, etc as they come from a very similar climate and are reasonably hardy. Only downside to the proteas being that they are quite slow growing.

As Fiona and others say the secret is to copy what the locals are growing in their gardens. The local garden centre is obviously great for ideas and what does well in your area, the staff are always happy to advise. Unlike Fiona we do not find our local garden centres expensive, far from it in fact! We are in Northern Lazio maybe its cheaper here?

I intend to have a garden.... I like the Piet Oudoff kind of mediterranean garden with gravel and dry loving plants. I could not live anywhere without a garden... and to be able to grow to eat. \I would like to plant a kind of meadow and also a copse with daffodils etc so am hopeful from the letters I have read that I can do so - and as I have alread said in other parts of the forum - bring my plants out with me - 32 clematis for example. janet

I want to make a Piet Oudoff kind of garden with gravel and meditterranean plants and also to bring my 32 clematis with me.... I would like a copse and of course veggies. I think with some protection they should survive - another 50 years before there is such a bad winter and that will see me out. Janet

So if I were to choose some place in Italy to do gardening, where do you think is the best part of Italy to choose. Which part of Italy do most everyday gardenings take place. In which city do most people enjoy gardening, or is it common all over the country? Also, it seems to me like that vegetables are prefered much over flowers in common Italian gardens, is that right? What about rose? Is rose very common? and Lilies?

Hello gardener,

Here's a link to zones in Italy, and a list of some of the plants that grow in these zones. It doesn't mean anything more than the potential to grow in these zones.
How much interest, time and energy you're willing to put into it is what makes for a having a garden or not. Lot's of looking around for things, paying for the plants, and taking the time to do all the work to make it happen.

[url]http://www.virtualitalia.com/articles/garden_zone.shtml[/url]

Despite its' reputation for being so dry ( not actually true in our experience !!!) in the summer there is a profusion of flowers all along the Superstrada and roads. Orleanda has been planted along most of the roads and it looks fabulous. It seems to flower from about March to October and come is whites, pinks and reds. Looks absolutely wonderful. As this grows into huge bushes , it can fill at lot of space in a large area with a mass of colour and needs hardly any care.
Also most of the houses round us , have loads of flowering 'rampicanti'...just love that word - climbing shrubs..like Bourgainvilla etc ..which in summer are fabulous and are long-flowering.
We only came last May , so our garden is in the early stages and no doubt we will lose some stuff as we experiment but do intend to have a mass of flowers somehow.
We have planted hundreds of spring bulbs and are waiting to see what happens and once the weather improves intend to try a rose garden. Our local garden centre is brilliant with advise and costs are very good , our lady there has advised us to get the roses in in January..we shall see !
We have also planted a whole rockery area with small and large cactus type plants....some of them have amazing colours.
As far as bedding plants are concerned ...most of the English favorites are widely available in summer, busy lizzies, petunias, marigolds which all seem to flourish with a bit of watering.
Personally we intend to water as we have our own well and water isn't a problem for us and the sun can be very hot in summer ( can't wait for it to come again !!!:D ) and don't think some of our ideas will work without a good irrigation system. The shops are full of all sorts of tubes /rubber pipes etc in season so rigging something up shouldn't be a problem with a bit of ingenuity and providing water is available.
As far as grass is concerned,we are experimenting with one smallish area this first year and we have tried something called Dichens Ripens which is a 'clover' type ground covering which apparantly needs hardly any water or cutting but as has previously been said we have numerous weeds and wild grass coming through as well....mind you it is green which is what we were looking for ..so if you aren't looking for a 'crochet' lawn it may work.!!
Look forward to hearing other ideas and experiences....gardening is our passion !!!!:cool: :)

Lyn,

Good morning first ;) , is the garden centre near us and will I be able to plant Orleanda in Feb when I'm over next :confused: . Glad to hear is doesn't need much attention and hopefully going to plant loads of the stuff along the fencing. (need to get the water pump fixed or replaced first) :mad: Have you tried taking cuttings of anything yet and did you do that sort of think back in the UK :rolleyes: .

[QUOTE=gardener]So if I were to choose some place in Italy to do gardening, where do you think is the best part of Italy to choose. Which part of Italy do most everyday gardenings take place. In which city do most people enjoy gardening, or is it common all over the country? Also, it seems to me like that vegetables are prefered much over flowers in common Italian gardens, is that right? What about rose? Is rose very common? and Lilies?[/QUOTE]

Reading this thread made me think that everything said is true even if apparently conflicting.You can find some amazing gardens in this country.You can find,and has been said and more often the case,a mix of vegetable garden,bit of lawn,then mainly shrubs,small trees, a few flowers etc.Consider that a lot (perhaps most of the population) live in appartments as opposed to houses with gardens whilst a lot( perhaps the majority) of those in the rural areas have so much to do on the land farming,animals,veg and fruit growing, that the more formal gardens tend to be limited and to some extent perhaps a more up market thing than in the uk.Yes,you can grow in reality a really wide variety of plants and flowers,in this area roses are really spectacular and with little or no treatment for example.To try to answer your original question yes garden/gardening and all things connected is a very fast expanmding business in this country in all areas obviously you have to consider that climatically is very varied from the alps to almost north african climate so everything changes depending on where you are.

Please bear in mind that Oleander is [I][B]extremely[/B][/I] toxic if ingested, even in small amounts. I have seen it stated that eating one leaf can kill an adult human and seven leaves can do for a horse.

It looks lovely, smells nice and doesn't need much attention (other than the occasional hacking back, as one sometimes sees along autostrada), but please be very careful with this stuff if you have children or grazing [URL="http://www.vet.purdue.edu/depts/addl/toxic/plant52.htm"]animals[/URL] (or even ones that nibble on plants now and then, like my cats do).

Also bear in mind that it can verge on the rampant if the conditions are right. If you plant it in a place that it likes and you later decide you don't want it, you might have problems getting rid of it. More on this and other points relating to the care and cultivation of Oleander in the comments posted [URL="http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/1327/"]here[/URL].

As well as being careful about where you plant the stuff, it is advisable to wear gloves when handling the plant since just coming in contact with the sap is enough to cause severe dermatitis for some people. Trimming it in a way that results in the clippings flying around -- hedge trimmer or strimmer for example -- is unwise unless exposed skin and especially eyes are protected. Disposal of the clippings by burning in a way that produces smoke is also hazardous.

Bottom line: Oleander is easy to grow because there aren't many little critters that survive their first taste of it!

It's far from being the only common garden plant that's poisonous, but it looks so innocuous and it's uncommon in Britain, so I thought people might find this warning helpful.

Al

[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="3"]It sounds if as this plant may be useful in making an organic insecticide like Rhubarb leaves which will kill bugs if you boil it in water and strain.I spray this onto greenfly etc.has anyone tried it?

As far as gardening in Italy desert plants can be very useful and many will survive freezing....you may get a more architectual and subtle effect in contrast to loads of colour but the many advantages are low maintainance, no watering resistant to insect attacks etc.Herbacious plants are very labour intensive and need splitting up yearly,feeding,watering etc.I do agree that roses can be really useful and only need a good pruning in the winter so are idea for those of us who are not living in Italy full-time.

Becky[/SIZE][/FONT]

Was intrigued by the poisonous oleanda reply , so did a search on google and it seems everything in the garden is poisonous including red peppers !

[QUOTE=alex and lyn]Was intrigued by the poisonous oleanda reply , so did a search on google and it seems everything in the garden is poisonous including red peppers ![/QUOTE]
Well, not [I]everything[/I] is poisonous, but it would be most unwise to try to liven up a salad by picking things at random from a flower garden. :eek:

Yes, the leaves of red peppers are considered toxic and this isn't the only example of a kitchen garden plant which has edible and not so nice bits. As manopello suggests, Rhubarb is another: the leaves are, strictly speaking, toxic. You'd need to eat several pounds before you died, but you'd feel unwell at a much lower dose. While people generally don't make a habit of eating rhubarb leaves, grazing on rhubarb has apparently been known to cause the death of livestock.

As in so many things, it's a matter of degree. Many ornamental garden plants can make you feel pretty miserable for a time if you nibble on bits. Some can cause rapid death at a very low dose.

Oleander is one of the latter.

Personally, I would not be happy to have the stuff growing in my garden if I had young children. The same applies to a few other plants.

As for using as it as an insecticide, I don't know. I would, however, be very careful if you decide to experiment. One could end up with a situation rather like the early poison gas attacks in WW I that went awry when the wind changed direction and blew the fumes back over the attacker's lines. :(

Al

In the 1960's/1970's I remember seeing Oleander's line the highways, empty lots and freeways. Over the years they've been removed and replaced with other things. In the sue crazy US, I wouldn't be suprized if there were lawsuits of some sort and the transportation department had them replaced.:rolleyes:

[QUOTE=AllanMason]
As well as being careful about where you plant the stuff, it is advisable to wear gloves when handling the plant since just coming in contact with the sap is enough to cause severe dermatitis for some people. Trimming it in a way that results in the clippings flying around -- hedge trimmer or strimmer for example -- is unwise unless exposed skin and especially eyes are protected. Disposal of the clippings by burning in a way that produces smoke is also hazardous.

Lyn, you are going to look a feching sight in the summer trimming back, donned in your white paper overall, goggles, dust mask and large yellow rubber gloves :eek: