The Caneva Gardens were created by Enrico Caneva in 2018 within the XVII century walls of the ‘farms' of Sarzana. The walls frame the entire northern perimeter of the park. The Calcandola stream flows nearby. The property measures 12,000 square meters on a very slight slope divided into three terraces.
The soil of the area is particularly favorable to botanical variety and was an extra bonus in the design of the park. Having traveled a lot in his life, visiting natural forests and botanical gardens in many countries, Enrico Caneva wanted to shape the park's layout as a travel.
Instead of planting the botanical collection based on alignments of genera and botanical families as of most historic gardens, he took inspiration from the botanical gardens of Rio de Janeiro and Singapore, where the species are presented in soft groups, planted in a free and informal way.
The learning is proposed as an immersive and sensorial experience. 15,000 plants have been planted since 2018. 2,500 different species from all over the world, 800 of which are used in perfumery.
A garden of this type is Darwinian and has been dedicated to the great botanical discoveries of Europeans from 1400 to 1800. For this reason, itineraries are proposed, identified by the names of important explorers of the past.
Thunberg was among the first botanists to scientifically explore Japan, as Douglas did in North America. Names of people like Cortes or Pizarro were avoided because of the terrible consequences of their discoveries on the native populations.
In addition to making visitors travel in space, the owner of the Caneva Gardens proposes to travel in time. An important area of the park is dedicated to prehistoric flora, with three main time windows: the Carboniferous, the Jurassic and the Cretaceous.
