History
Landriana is a romantic site full of fascinating surprises along the Latium coast forty kilometres south of Rome. It covers over ten hectares within a vast estate, bought at the end of the 1950s by the family who still own it. The gardens, designed by Russell Page, were extended and modified with new collections of plants, including heathers, hydrangeas, old roses and camellias, to satisfy the passionate botanical curiosity and aesthetic sense of its creator, Lavinia Taverna.
The garden is divided into thirty ''rooms''. Roses flourish in the valley of old roses, where they grow in beds bordered by lavender, thyme and carnations, in an avenue of Rosa mutabilis, in another of “Bonica” roses and on the walls of an old farm building covered in Rosa banksiae. The pastel colours, the evanescence of the white avenue and the silver of the olive garden, the tone on tone of the flowers in the blue field, give visitors an extraordinary sense of peace and contentment. Most of Landriana succeeds in redefining the English style landscape garden in contemporary and Mediterranean terms, whereas some ''rooms'' adopt the austere style of the Italian formal garden, such as the garden of oranges where the severe geometric design fits with the perfectly shaped spherical orange trees and the box balls at their feet.
There are flowers throughout the year: narcissus, tulips, ornamental cherries, magnolias and roses in spring, plumbago, daturas, passion fruit and hibiscus in the summer, camellias in autumn. For several years the gardens have hosted one of the most important Italian garden shows in April and October.
