Fully understanding the current situation to make conscious choices
Our History in Tuscany
My work in Tuscany began back in 2011 when I had the fortune of working for two years as head gardener on a marvelous estate just outside Siena.
We are in the Crete Senesi, a Tuscan territory dedicated to agriculture and famous worldwide for the harmony of its hills, forged over centuries by the incessant work of man.
Although average annual rainfall is considerable, it is usually concentrated in short periods and accompanied, year after year, by increasingly high variability.
Scarce water availability and the difficulty of finding deep groundwater have driven the creation of small artificial reservoirs over the centuries, now typical of the Tuscan landscape.
Often insufficient or undersized for the estate’s actual water needs, they never play a primary role but rather a supporting one.
Dirty and almost always insufficient water leads to two inevitable considerations:
- The installation of potential purification systems to ensure the correct functioning of irrigation systems over the years.
- The actual utility of the reservoir itself in the face of insufficient water supply during critical months.
After a careful cost-benefit analysis, it is highly probable that the most efficient solution does not involve the use of these reservoirs, nor does it involve rainwater harvesting—also dirty, potentially harmful to systems, and almost always insufficient.
Rainwater collection, unless one has particularly large reservoirs and equally extensive buildings, is unfortunately almost never useful for garden maintenance, especially during the initial establishment phases. In most cases, accumulated water is perhaps available for the last weeks of spring, but unavailable throughout the summer.
Add to this the absence of groundwater wells or scarce flow rates during critical moments, combined with the ban on using public water in gardens during the summer period—conditions typical not only of the Crete Senesi territory but also of the Val d’Orcia, Chianti, or lower Maremma (Capalbio, Monte Argentario, etc.), places where we work extensively and in perfect harmony with the landscape.
All these factors lead to a single conclusion: to irrigate our gardens, we will have to build a sufficiently large cistern and purchase water.
Having described the typical Tuscan situation (from north to south), let us return to my experience as head gardener in that marvelous Sienese villa (where the only water supply came via tanker transport).
What I found myself managing during my long and extraordinary stay was a garden completely dependent on water, lacking long-term planning, far from understanding the territory, and with a high environmental impact.
Imagine two hectares of garden entirely composed of lawns, labyrinths, parterres, and other elements typical of historic Italian and English gardens. Imagine a planting layout (distance between one plant and another) so close as to make any intensive cultivation pale in comparison, incapable of guaranteeing correct root system development and good only for making plants perennially dependent on water.
The name “Crete Senesi” derives from the type of soil, entirely clayey, typical of these areas. Imagine hundreds of Mediterranean plants planted in clay, without any measures regarding drainage and soil texture (in nature, these plants live among stones).
This is what some important Tuscan nursery businesses do, with the evident sole intent of selling plants and maximizing profit at the expense of everything else.
These entities almost entirely swallow the Tuscan market, thanks to their massive presence in the territory and the prestige they have built over time. Often skilled growers and reference points for the nursery market, but alas, poor interpreters of the territory, enemies of the environment and of the final consumers’ pockets.
I spent two years of my life trying to convert the unsustainable into the sustainable, with the help of a formidable English landscaper whom I consider my mentor, the one who showed me the path to follow.
It is from this experience that I truly understood in which direction garden design in Tuscany and Italy had to evolve and what I should offer to a market increasingly attentive to sustainability.
I suffered particularly at the idea that every year dozens and dozens of people were deceived by entities of this type, dazzled by the brand and the history behind it, or often poorly advised.
I thus entirely diverted my attention to garden design, learning from the greatest representatives of international Naturalistic Planting Design and bringing all that know-how to Italy, adapting it to the characteristics of my territory.
Naturalistic planting design adapted to the Tuscan climatic context
Today we convert important historic Tuscan properties into gardens with a modern character but perfectly interconnected with the past, the current landscape, and future climate challenges.
Despite often multi-million investments for the realization of large and important gardens, we guarantee our clients low management costs.
This is possible thanks to the correct use of drought-resistant plants, more limited lawn areas, innovative turfgrasses, or walkable alternatives rich in color and biodiversity. Aware of water scarcity and the respect we must all have in using increasingly less available resources, we bet everything on water saving and design solutions compatible with the territory.
We also follow small residential realities with care and particular attention, thus guaranteeing all our services to a more than transversal audience, convinced that high professionalism must be accessible to everyone.
More and more Tuscan gardeners and nurserymen choose to avail themselves of our consultancy to create gardens in step with the times, aware of the importance of the garden designer figure.
We are particularly proud and happy about this change in the luxury (and non-luxury) garden market in Tuscany, as we sense a greater awareness of roles, towards nature, and future climate challenges.
No garden made and conceived without taking into account the factors just listed will have the possibility to endure and evolve in the coming decades without a profound and necessary conversion.
How to design a Mediterranean garden in Tuscany
After analyzing the starting conditions of many properties in Tuscany and taking a look at the market offer of this wonderful region, let’s understand which areas to focus on to successfully design a resilient and sustainable garden.
Topographic Survey
The morphology of the land can be very complex, especially in areas dedicated to viticulture like Chianti (between Siena and Florence). It is especially in these cases that a very careful reading of the site is required, in order to return a detailed and precise current state to work on.
For many years now, we have abandoned GPS instrumentation for surveys and no longer entrust this delicate task to third parties. A survey carried out via GPS receiver is based exclusively on the arbitrary choices of the technician because the entire area is traced only thanks to the acquisition of points.
To date, we are the only garden design studio in Italy to boast years of experience in topographic surveying. We carry out the survey ourselves with sophisticated instruments such as drones and laser scanners.
Unlike point surveys with GPS instrumentation, these tools allow the entire area to be mapped, then giving the designer the task of evaluating elements useful to the project.
Returning a detailed current state via drone and/or laser scanner allows for minimizing the margin of error and developing a project perfectly calibrated to the site. We are thus able to arrive at a very precise executive design free of errors and therefore significant savings during the construction phase.
Study of the Tuscan Territory
For us, connection with the landscape is extremely important as we are in a region with particularly prized territories that cannot be ignored during the design phase.
It is only with careful and planned interconnection between the garden and the surrounding environment that we can create a place that attracts, invites exploration, and functions over the years.
Chemical-physical soil analyses, floristic surveys, and the study of the agrarian landscape, together with the collection of the client’s precious and fundamental requests, are fundamental steps that help delineate possible paths to undertake.
How to create a connection with a natural landscape, perhaps wooded and typical of many areas of Tuscany? By choosing, for example, a naturalistic planting scheme that includes biological forms similar to those present in nature. In this way, the garden will always accompany the seasonal trend, avoiding useless and blinding contrasts. How to create instead a link with a semi-natural landscape characterized by olive, vine, or cereal cultivation? By inserting, for example, some formal elements in the garden (such as plants managed in forced shapes) and thus marking the constant work of man on nature. We could also opt for highly readable planting schemes, where plants are arranged in blocks or through designs specifically studied to echo the geometries of the local rural fabric.
The addition of formal elements also facilitates connection with the past and with all the elements that have made the Italian garden famous.
One of our latest modern reinterpretations of a historic garden located in the wonderful Chianti hills
Choosing the Right Plants
Seeking that right connection with the past and the tradition of Tuscany does not mean ignoring the present and future climate challenges. Today’s knowledge and the nursery market offer are far different from those of one or three hundred years ago.
It is therefore inconceivable for us to continue using exclusively boxwood or yew plants as if nothing had changed until today, continuing to create gardens with high maintenance and environmental impact.
Consider that to create formal elements such as hedges, labyrinths, spherical forms, etc., today we can choose from dozens of Mediterranean plant species or those resistant to stress such as drought, diseases, etc.
Among the many species, I cite a few:
- Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Boule’
- Pistacia lentiscus
- Phillyrea angustifolia
- Phillyrea latifolia
- Elaeagnus x ebbingei
- Sarcopoterium spinosum
- Leucophyllum frutescens
- Teucrium fruticans
Tuscany is a region characterized by long, hot, and particularly arid summers, and due to widespread water scarcity, it is dutiful and strongly recommended to choose predominantly drought-resistant plants. During the design phase, it is necessary to take into account the type of soil they will need and therefore all the necessary tillage to cultivate them correctly.
It is rare to find ideal initial soil conditions, and great attention must always be paid to the composition of the correct substrate: an initial investment that will entail enormous savings over the years. 99% of gardens that fail usually have serious problems with water stagnation and compaction, that is, conditions potentially fatal for all Mediterranean plants.
Spherical elements obtained through the use of Phillyrea angustifolia in one of our gardens in Porto Ercole
Lawns and Alternatives
The cool-season turfgrass (microthermal) is the garden element that absolutely needs the most external inputs, including water, fertilization, and phytosanitary treatments.
In Tuscany, the widespread and reckless use of turfgrass entails the use of unimaginable quantities of water every year with evident negative environmental impact and loss of biodiversity.
Not yet prohibited by law, turfgrass is often requested and/or proposed as the sole constituent element of the garden, trivializing and disintegrating the concept of the garden itself (click here to learn more). Sometimes it is also proposed together with centuries-old olive trees, creating enormous phytosanitary problems for a tree with high drought resistance like the olive, which requires personalized irrigation and is almost always necessary only during the initial rooting phases.
Lawn areas must therefore be well inserted into the context and sized based on actual necessity: we often surround ourselves with very large lawns of which we use only a small percentage.
As an alternative to cool-season grasses, we can opt for warm-season grasses (macrothermal) like Zoysia japonica or Zoysia tenuifolia, in vegetative dormancy in winter and perfectly connected to a wooded territory like that of Chianti.
Zoysia japonica in winter in perfect connection with the Chianti wooded territory
Or choose true alternatives to turfgrass, colorful and bearers of biodiversity such as:
- Phyla nodiflora
- Verbena tenuisecta (o Glandularia aristigera)
- Achillea crithmifolia
- Dymondia margaretae
These lawns allow a drastic reduction of an important and precious resource like water, do not require fertilization or phytosanitary treatments, and bring biodiversity and flowers during vegetative periods.
N.B. It is not enough to buy the seedlings and plant them. To succeed, it is necessary to adequately prepare the soil as happens for any turfgrass.
Lawn of Lippia, Verbena, and Achillea just 3 months after planting in one of our gardens on Monte Argentario
The Use of Materials
In our gardens in Tuscany, we always use and recommend the use of materials in harmony with the territory and the buildings, often ancient and permeated by a long history.
The choice of crushed stone or quarry gravel as mulching material or as a base for pedestrian and driveway paths is often a good solution because it is sustainable and low cost, especially in the presence of nearby quarries. The massive use of this inert material also allows avoiding the installation of metal edgings, usually used to separate different materials. An ideal solution if we choose to simulate a Mediterranean environment with natural forms, where the presence of boundaries would appear forced and artificial.
Absence of borders thanks to the use of crushed stone and plants with a natural habit
The presence of slight slopes should not be frightening as sometimes the installation of mulching fabrics that retain moisture, limit erosive phenomena, and the development of spontaneous plants is sufficient.
We suggest biodegradable mulching fabrics due to their reduced environmental impact and their scarce permanence over the years: the plants, adequately chosen and positioned, will then consolidate and entirely cover the ground.
Although stone, often local, may seem the only possible solution in the presence of an ancient farmhouse or castle, CORTEN steel proves to be a formidable ally as it is easy to integrate into any context and moldable at will. A fire pit or a water feature in CORTEN steel can be decorative elements capable of creating a pleasant contrast with the pre-existing elements of a past era.
CORTEN steel fountain entirely designed by our studio
The Gravel Garden in Tuscany
The Gravel Garden is literally a garden where the unifying visual element is gravel, or more technically, crushed stone. It is the form of garden that most simulates a Mediterranean garigue, in visual, ecological, and agronomic terms. Gravel Gardens, often erroneously defined as Dry Gardens, are gardens typically designed to be resilient and guarantee sustainable management, taking into account available local resources.
To function, this form of garden must be meticulously designed in every part:
- Substrate composition
- Laying of mulching materials
- Presence or absence of irrigation systems
- Planting methods
- Design of plant communities
- Future management
Another distinctive feature of the Gravel Garden is undoubtedly the simulation of Mediterranean ecosystems, particularly garigue and grassland. The design of plant communities plays a fundamental role because it is only thanks to the right mix and balance that these plants will be able to coexist over the years and require little attention from us.
The water saving we have achieved over the years in our Gravel Gardens is 80% compared to gardens heavily focused on turfgrass with water management that pays little attention to waste.
A saving which, added to the few maintenance interventions, allows for the recouping of construction costs in a short time.
One of our latest projects in Tuscany: a wonderful Gravel Garden amidst the Bolgheri hills
The advantages of the Mediterranean garden in Tuscany
If we were to list the advantages of a Mediterranean garden well-integrated into the Tuscan context and in step with the times, we could summarize them as:
- Drastic reduction in water use
- Absence of fertilization
- Absence of phytosanitary treatments
- Control and management entirely focused on correct water use
- Few pruning interventions per year
- Manual weeding concentrated in the first year of development
- Increase in biodiversity
- Continuous change due to the succession of seasons
- Perfect integration with the surrounding landscape
A list sufficient to begin seeing contemporary gardens and their potential with fresh eyes.
History and Trends of Garden Design in Tuscany
Tuscany is a region rich in history, art, and culture. It is no surprise, then, that garden design in this region also has a long and prestigious tradition.
When we think of the Tuscan garden, we think of Villa La Foce, a masterpiece by the famous English landscape architect Cecil Pinsent. Among all his wonderful Tuscan gardens, it is the one that most embodies the essence of the Italian garden and its modern derivations.
A garden perfectly interconnected with the wonderful Val d’Orcia landscape, capable of unleashing the majesty of the Italian garden, permeated with volumes and geometries, and at the same time capable of bestowing sweetness and joy thanks to the use of aromatics and herbaceous plants, in true English tradition.
It is no coincidence that today it is still English landscapers creating gardens so intensely connected and well-integrated into the Tuscan territory. Those who know what a garden really is and understand its teachings could never propose turfgrass in a territory where climate, history, tradition, and terrain guide us in a diametrically opposite direction.
It is no coincidence that the contemporary private garden we most admire today in Tuscany (La Petraia) was designed by an English garden designer and is currently managed by a very talented gardener, also of British origin.
The garden, located among the Chianti hills and surrounded by woods and vineyards, is a perfect bridge between past and present. It is only with great mastery and sensitivity regarding gardens, together with the deep culture of the owners, that all this was made possible.
We therefore do not blame those who decide to involve foreign landscapers, often Anglo-Saxon: national alternatives, if one does not know where to look, can be quite depressing, as we have seen.
We are therefore very proud to have become the reference point in Tuscany for many private individuals and national and foreign investors who decide to invest in this region and make their properties unique and renowned worldwide. We do this through collaboration with important local corporate entities, offering our clients a complete service from consultancy to realization and future management.
To discover how to work with us, start the dialogue HERE. We will contact you to organize a meeting and explain all the details.