The Italian Villa I Tatti sits in the foothills east of Florence in a stony landscape pockmarked by quarries that supplied the pietra serena for Renaissance Florence. Built in the 16th century and renovated in the early 1900s for the American art dealer Bernard Berenson and his wife Mary Pearsall Smith, the villa and garden located…
Sometimes trees are part of a forest, sometimes they stand alone. As a child, the lone tree at the top of the field by my grandparents’ house in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia was a beacon, calling me out of the fenced farmyard and into adventure. The fact that it was a forbidden destination only…
I’m in Toronto, Ontario for the annual get-together of garden lovers who write online about gardens and gardening. This is the eighth Garden Bloggers Fling — and it’s an exhausting and exhilarating few days of garden visits and garden talk. Our program started earlier this week with a visit to a downtown Toronto garden where…
It’s a commonplace to say that a garden is different each time you see it, but my most recent visit to Villa d’Este at Tivoli confirmed that some truisms really are true: you can’t step in the same water twice. Not that I was stepping in water. I was surrounded by it, however, since water…
Yesterday I returned from three weeks in Italy. While there I visited almost 20 gardens, some on my own and some in the company of the group of ten I was leading, along with my friend, travel consultant and organizer par excellence, Julia Guest. I write this blog once a week, and generally publish it on Sundays.…