The Italian Job

The centre isle of the Italian Garden leading to its focal point























Deep in our gardens lays the sheltered, architectural, Italian Garden set in what was the horses old sand school. The privet hedges have miraculously grown in the remaining mixture of sand and mine waste as the top soil was pushed away when the area was levelled. Here I always find the temperature is  a few degrees warmer than the rest of the garden and the cool clean lines are a release from the happy jumble of plants and palms that forms the rest of the garden. Every year though, there comes the menace of the great hedge trim and we have come to regret our choice of the tough fast growing Privet - it was chosen as it was already growing on the farm and so we reasoned it would stand the harsh Winter gales from the sea hmmm thrive more like Still this year John of http://www.handyman-penzance.co.uk/ came along to sort out the chaos in a couple  of days and suggested that we could pick up the still green clippings with the lawn mower.....duhh! why didn't we think of that and so by the end of the afternoon on Saturday we had a tidy mulched-under-the-hedges garden ready to enjoy. We crept out again after supper and Charles took some shots the garden so follow me....

Leaving the main lawn, framed by the palms with the sea beyond,
 to turn to walk into the Italian Garden

Looking back towards the lawn past the intriguing series of door ways each
opening to a private lawn - sometimes each set of guests claim a garden
to sit in for the afternoon

The cross vista to the statue of David

Ian Lowe our designer cleverly used a borrowed view to
make the garden go on for ever!

A  little lawned garden forms the centerpiece with a cross vista to the
statue of David

The Discus thrower sits quietly in one of the enclosures

Hi I'm your blog host Christine in my "best" Gardening
outfit with my faithful cat Ollie

The border that runs behind the Italian Garden winding
in and out of the lawns

The raised mound at the centre of the Italian Garden

The last rays of sunshine of the evening on the gardens centerpiece

The statue at the end of the vista has become an old friend
over the years gathering lichen in the clean air of Cornwall

and back out into the main garden with the sudden release
from the cocoon of enclosure

One of the borders darker now but the sea is still blue beyond

Home again and good night from Ollie Cat