To Italy For The Roses

Gardeners like plants that do well for them and, for the Italians, there is no flower more adored than the rose. They have become connoisseurs, says the rosarian Charles Quest-Ritson, creating some of the finest rose gardens in the world

- Charles Quest-Ritson

THERE are many reasons for visiting Italy in spring, but I put gardens near the top of the list. Anyone who travels though the country in high summer will remember only the browns and yellows of the burnt landscape—apart from the vines, olive-trees and cypresses, of course. The intensity of the colours of spring is a complete revelation. This is especially true of modern gardens made in the English style with plants chosen for their beauty of flower, form or colour.

Ornamental planting plays only a small part in classical Italian gardens. The English who settled in Italy from the middle of the 19th century onwards—there were large expat communities in Florence, Rome and Naples— were rather puzzled by the parterres and box-edged formal gardens. Why were they not filled with paeonies, irises, lilies and roses?

In response, the Victorians in Italy created their own hybrid style, which combined the traditional formality of a Renaissance structure with their own romantic attachment to floral abundance. Now it was the Italians’ turn to be puzzled: i milordi inglesi may have been making something that was bellissima, but they were not giardini veri. And so the stand off continued, well into the latter half of the 20th century.