Eden Revisited beautifully displays the possibilities within a garden for expressing one’s personality just as one can within their home.
A beautifully tiled beach which Pasti does so well inside The Garden of the Portuguese.
Over the holidays, I love to spend the down time reading my new books. This past Christmas, I read Eden Revisited by Ngoc Minh Ngo. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book as I had not seen beyond the front cover. It was spectacular. I just loved this book. Seeing Umberto Pasti’s Rohuna garden gave me dreams and hopes to create something magical in my own space.
The book is broken down into sections detailing the various gardens and their details.
There is a map of the very large garden and the houses set into them. Different gardeners have their own plot with which to design and tend.
The garden above I found particularly interesting because of what was planted. Pasti writes the he planted mimosa trees because of the nitrogen that the roots would add to the soil. This garden was barren desert land previously with rocks and little else. He says that the mimosas don’t live long but what they give back in their short life is spectacular. These euphorbias have grown tremendously as a result.
Reading this, I searched the internet for information supporting this idea of certain plants adding nitrogen but found nothing. Then I asked my gardener friend. She hadn’t heard of this. He may be absolutely correct however as my rosemary planted next to a prickly pear has gone wild. Everyone comments on it when approaching my house. I think I may need to plant a lot of these cacti to boost my unfriendly sandy soil.
Just like his home, Umberto Pasti’s gardens are loose and undecorated. I love his approach to both. He has a funny story in his book about the reclaimed cement tile and its origins.
Detailed plant information can inspire the gardener who wants to add some of Pasti’s specimens to their own garden.
There are pages showing certain specimens that he chose with their latin names. This pleased me as I love to learn about new species (to me at least) and what is appealing about them. It allowed me to look them up and research for their availability here in the United States.
If you enjoy gardening and appreciate extraordinary rather than typical gardens you will be interested in this book. It is joyful to see people’s personalities expressed in their gardens as it is in their homes.
Casa V Interiors can create a home that expresses the personality that is unique to you with some garden visions thrown in.