Cacciatagrande – Capalbio, Tuscany

Beyond the Tarots Garden, designed by artist Niki De Saint Phalle, the road leading to the Vulci Etruscan site gets narrower and narrower, and eventually becomes a dirt road. There, the landscape is pure Maremma countryside: large flocks of sheep grazing in the wild, horses in their enclosures, and even some white cows with huge horns. Along the roads, what only looks like dusty brushwood in the summer, regenerates in the autumn and spring, turning into a blossoming garden. It is Astragalus, Nigella, Cynara, Ampelodesmos, Rosmarinus, Myrtus, Pistacia, Rosa sempervirens, Cyclamen, Orchys, Clematis flammula and Salvia. Under the large, isolated eucalyptuses, bunches of scented daffodils explode when it’s winter elsewhere. The changing landscape is green in the winter, yellow in the summer, brown in the autumn: with this inspiration in my eyes, I created a vibrating garden with Mediterranean plants. Botanical selection was extended to include plants coming from other regions of the world where the climate is similar: it is the Mediterranean climate flora from California, Chili, South Africa, Australia and more. There are many more dryland plants than one could imagine, and where climate allows, they can be used to create a garden without any irrigation system: it is enough to choose the right season, prepare the ground as needed and be aware that starting with small plants means saving time in the speed at which the garden will grow. This project is a modern-day quotation of ancient Persian and Middle Eastern gardens much beloved by their owners/their owner, a cultivated, refined man who has a passion for breeding beautiful top-lineage Arabian horses, owns an orchard with a collection of fig trees, a large vegetable garden, pathways and paddocks for the horses, a small greenhouse, and a wide collection of specific plants.