Mediterranean Garden Designs Views

• Books

Tuscan landscape designs are full of lush evergreens that provide year round life and color. Trees and shrubs provide shade, accent walkways and patios, and create barriers throughout your property. Consider these suggestions for your Tuscan garden: Live oaks provide shade with their sweeping limbs and continuous color with their evergreen leaves. Olive trees are also evergreens and are typical of Mediterranean gardens, offering unique texture and shape. Italian Cypress tree is a signature plant in Tuscan gardens and is often planted in rows. Citrus trees, like orange and lemon trees, are wonderful accents, especially planted in large terra cotta pots. Boxwoods and bay trees are perfect for unique topiaries and are terrific borders for drives and walkways. Italian Vegetable and Herb Gardens Add Texture and Fragrance

The Mediterranean garden is defined by its geometric pathways and beds. While some circular designs may be incorporated, overall the design contains straight lines and definable pathways. Plants are sorted by their purpose and beds allow ease of access for those purposes. For example, an herb bed containing rosemary will also typically contain thyme and oregano, as these plants are both useful and aesthetically pleasing when they bloom. Orchards are organized with trees spaced equally to ensure optimal growth and shading.

Mediterranean gardening designs are those based on the courtyards, small house yards, and balconies of Spain and Italy. The style is sophisticated and highly structural, almost architectural in its effect, emphasizing flat horizontal and vertical planes of texture such as stone and brick, punctuated by columnar plant forms, bursts of striking flower colors, and fruit, nut, and olive trees. Fountains, statuary, and paths play a key role in drawing the eye and the ear through the Mediterranean garden, creating a strong sense of motion amidst the stillness and formality of the plants and hardscape elements.

Why a 'mediterranean' garden society? For many years gardening literature has been dominated by descriptions and illustrations of plants and garden designs suited to the climate of northern Europe and other temperate zones where so far there is no lack of water. Seduced by these images, mediterranean gardeners have struggled to produce approximations to 'English gardens' which are quite unsuited to the conditions of the mediterranean climate areas.