The Gardens of Venice and the Veneto by Jenny Condie and Alex Ramsay

Specialists estimate the Veneto as claiming around 4,000 urban congregations and hosting an equivalent number of extant and extinct gardens. They find the survivors sufficiently inspirational to twenty-first century-configured edible, formal, informal, natural, nurtured, ornamental farms and gardens. The guide gives as representatives:

• Padua’s Orto Botanico, Villa Barbarigo Pizzoni Ardemani, Villa Emmo, Villa Pisani Bolognesi Scalabrin, Villa Valmarana;
• Rovigo’s Cà Dolfin-Marchiori;
• Stra’s Villa Pisani;
• Treviso’s Villa Barbaro a Maser;
• Venice’s Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Giudecca, Palazzo Cappello Malipiero Barnabò, Palazzo Soranzo Cappello;
• Verona’s Giardino di Pojega, Giardino Giusti, Villa Allegri Arvedi a Cuzzano, Villa Della Torre; and
• Vicenza’s Giardino Jacquard, Parco di Villa Rossi, Villa Fracanzan Piovene, Villa Trento da Schio, Villa Trissino Marzotto, Villa Valmarana ai Nani.

Venice hones box, façade, platform, terrace, trellis cultivation away from brackish-flooded, high-watered, marshy, mud-flatted shorelines. Newbies mistakenly identify Venice therefore as non-green. But La Serenissima Venezia contrastingly juggles:

• acanthus, anemone, apple, aquilegia, artichokes, aspidistra, aubergine;
• beans, box;
• cabbage, carob, catnip, cherry, chestnut, citrus, clematis, columbine, cornflower, courgette, crocus, cuckoo-pint, cypress;
• elder;
• false-acacia, fig, foxglove,  fritillary;
• geranium, golden-rain, grape-hyacinth, grapevine;
• hellebore, hibiscus, hickory, honeyberry, hornbeam, hyacinth, hydrangea;
• iris, ivy;
• Jacob’s-ladder, jasmine, Judas-tree;
• kiwi;
• larkspur, laurel, lavender, lemon, lily, lime, loquat, love-in-a-mist;
• magnolia, mimosa, moss, mulberry;
• narcissus;
• oleander, olive, onion, ornamental grasses;
• palm, peach, pear, periwinkle, persimmon, pine, pittosporum, plane, plum, pomegranate, poplar, poppy, potato, privet, pumpkin;
• rose;
• tomato;
• viburnum, violet;
• wild garlic, willow, winter-sweet, wisteria, wood-squill; and
• yew.

Similar flora knits the Veneto. The above-mentioned six urban clusters lodge herbaceous and woody vegetation beyond what Venice’s less forgiving environs grow. The list mixes for:

• Padua agave, beech, bishop’s-lace, buttercup, catalpa, cedar, cyclamen, forget-me-not, fox-nut, freesia, gingko, honeysuckle, lilac, oak, ox-eye daisy, paulownia, sweet-pea, sequoia, sesame, sunflower, sweet-woodruff, tamarisk, tulip, wild-clary;
• Rovigo aucuba;
• Stra bergamot, chinotti, citron, grapefruit, mandarin, orange, pineapple, yucca;
• Verona apricot, holly, hop-hornbeam, lesser-calamint; and
• Vicenza almond, azalea, camellia, camphor, five-finger, forsythia, fuchsia, horse-chestnut, quince, red-/white-cedar, rhododendron, rice, tea-olive.

So The Gardens of Venice and the Veneto offers culturally enthralling, educationally entertaining, geo-historically enthralling insights from:

• Jenny Condie, author;
• Jane Crawley, editor;
• Frances Lincoln Limited, publisher;
• Lewis Hallam Design; and
• Alex Ramsay, photographer.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Donna Leon, American expatriate crime writer and resident of Venice (and, since 2015, Switzerland), has added to the allure and mystique of Venice through her writings.
Donna Leon; Monday, November 1, 2010, 12:19: Michiel Hendryckx, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donna_Leon.jpg

Gardens of Venetian archipelago, a paradise of gardens and of water: Giardino Eden (Garden of Eden), private garden on Giudecca, island south of Venice's central islands
Giudecca, actually 8 connected islands, is located south, across Giudecca Canal, from Venice's long southern shore.: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra (dalbera), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Le_jardin_dEden_(Giudecca,_Venise)_(6124618705).jpg

Vicenza's Villa Valmarana ai Nani, which dates to the 17th century, showcases roses among garden features.
Vicenza, south central Veneto, northeastern Italy: Marcok di it:wikipedia, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Villa_Valmarana_ai_Nani_1.jpg

Padua's Villa Barbarigo Pizzoni Ardemani, which dates to the 17th century, features remarkable gardens with water works, including a plethora of functioning fountains, that emphasize aesthetic and practical contributions of water to garden designs.
Valsanzibio, central Veneto, northeastern Italy: GFS, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ValsanzibioVilla.jpg

Eastern Verona's Palazzo e Giardino Giusti (Giusti Palace and Garden) dates to 16th century: Palace typifies Neo-Classic style; garden is considered as one of most beautiful examples of Italian-styled (giardino all'italiana) Renaissance gardens in Europe.
Cultivated greenery, including mazes and parterres, flank a way of Italian cypress trees (Cupressus sempervirens) in Giardino Giusti.
eastern Verona, southwestern Veneto, northeastern Italy: Lazy KATT, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Verona-giardinogiusti01.jpg; wilthaihui, CC BY SA 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/mmoraru/242493238/

Condie, Jenny. 2013. The Gardens of Venice and the Veneto. Photographs by Alex Ramsay. London, England, U.K.: Frances Lincoln Limited.