PIANTIDONNA
Creating beautiful spaces for discerning clients
ITALY
- Villa Sassella
These gardens are on a hillside near Lucca in Tuscany.
I took them over in Spring 1995 in the very early stages of their development
- before the first plants were specified.
The client brief was passed on to me as - “it’s got to look good in
August and no red Hibiscus”. A few lines scribbled on sheets of A4 in
lieu of a plan and a few rather vague photos were all I had to go by.
Some groundwork had begun before my arrival accompanied
by 2,000+ plants. I was welcomed by
the local workforce with slight astonishment, lady gardeners being a rarity
in Italy. I spoke no Italian and had
never visited the site before. Luckily
gardening (and Latin plant names) helped as our mutual language and for everything
else we used my poor school Spanish,
even worse French and lots of drawing diagrams in the mud accompanied by mime!
Once we got to work and I was as muddy as them .... well I became Pianti
Donna - that’s what it sounded like to me anyway - it means Plant Lady!
This is an ongoing project and the client and I work
closely with a shared vision of what we are trying to achieve.
On the following pages are photos of the gardens at
various stages in their development grouped into their respective areas. Some are complete stand-alone gardens, others
are planted areas, all interlink and/or flow together. For work schedule purposes
there are around 30 of these areas. The total site is approximately 40 acres
Oh and I do now speak Italian .... as long as it’s
related to gardens, plants, restaurants or supermarkets and nobody is too
concerned about my grammar.
The Gardens
The House
RHS Shows
Chelsea 2000
Chelsea 1996
Hampton Court 1995
ZIGZAG SCENTED STEPS
REST AND VIEW TERRACE
TENNIS SIDE + FORECOURT
CASINA
PERCIES’ GARDEN
ECHO MEADOW
POOL ROCKS
FRONT DRIVE AND GARDEN
STRADA
PERGOLA TERRACE
BLUE RIVER RUN
POOLSIDE
POOL ROOM LAWN
1995/2000 COMPARISON
CAMPORA TERRACES
OLIVE TERRACES
BOSSOLO BASSO
QUIESA AND VIEWS
TENNIS ORCHARD
