Popular imagination pictures gardens as places with perfectlymanicured green lawns bordered by splendid, well-trimmed bushesand an array of brightly coloured flowers. Glossy magazines andgardening books picture idyllic bucolic scenes with roses and clematisvying each other in splendour. The mere thought of a garden in themidst of an arid desert, where water is a matter of wishful thinking,seems incredibly bizarre, almost totally absurd. Yet gardens can growunder a blazing sun, in rocky, parched terrain, where rainfall is rare, oreven non-existent. Indeed, many of the plants that grow naturally in verydry conditions are actually easier to cultivate, as long as the gardenerrespects their origins, which means not watering them during thesummer. The Ceanothus from the Californian hills, or Sicilian capers, oragain Lithodora fruticosa, can’t take the heat combined with moisture:if you water them during the summer months, they die. Instinctivelywe tend to think that water automatically brings luxuriant plants andflowers in its wake, while arid dryness inevitably means dust, thornand scrub. But this conventional view is not always true. The flora inMediterranean climates is much more luxuriant than it is in temperatezones. Estimates calculate that plants from the Mediterranean areaaccount for roughly 10% of the world’s total flora. Plants that live in aridclimes have developed important adaption strategies as they evolved.An awareness of these strategies is an essential part of creating asuccessful garden in arid zones. One example of a successful evolutionstrategy is to retreat when conditions get just too tough. In some desertregions plants have a very short life cycle. Because rainfall is so rare,plants flower rapidly, on the same day of the rain, and after a very fewdays they die, but not before releasing an abundant quantity of seedthat will lie hidden in the desert for the rest of the year. Despite theirbrief life cycle, when they do flower it is a unique sight: huge swathesof land carpeted with brightly-coloured flowers. These are the so-calledflowering deserts, like the Atacama in Chile, the Mojave in Californiaand the Sonora, on the border between the USA and Mexico.
Coaxing flowers to grow in the desert and to create the largest oasisin the world, these are the new challenges the Paghera Group face inthe immediate future.
As well as working on splendid gardens dotted around theMediterranean, in Turkey and in France, where Mediterranean floraplays the role of the protagonist in a riot of flowers, colours and scents.Plants used to living in dry climates, which have adapted to variousconditions of soil, climate, exposure and latitude over time. Gardensgoverned by nature alone, free to live a natural, untrammelled life.Gardens which may sometimes lose an individual plant which hasstruggled to become acclimatised, but safe in the knowledge thatanother, hardier example will soon replace it.
Coaxing flowers to grow in the desert and to create the largest oasisin the world, these are the new challenges the Paghera Group face inthe immediate future.
As well as working on splendid gardens dotted around theMediterranean, in Turkey and in France, where Mediterranean floraplays the role of the protagonist in a riot of flowers, colours and scents.Plants used to living in dry climates, which have adapted to variousconditions of soil, climate, exposure and latitude over time. Gardensgoverned by nature alone, free to live a natural, untrammelled life.Gardens which may sometimes lose an individual plant which hasstruggled to become acclimatised, but safe in the knowledge thatanother, hardier example will soon replace it.
