Jay Blue House Garden and the Hamamelis collection

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Jay Blue House Garden is a wood-garden of about one hectare, located in Tuvina, near Fontagneto D’Agogna (NO). It was recently established by Mattia Godio and Marco Grosso, two young gardeners and collectors of unusual and rare plants – the wood-garden actually surrounds their blue house.

In the garden area, of about 3.500 square yards, they have planted trees, shrubs, perennial plants, ornamental grasses, as well as bulbous and annual varieties in soft flower beds, whose blooms bless all the seasons; the two owners are now working to clean up the wooded area, of almost 10.000 square yards meters, and re-introduce new plants suitable for the local climate, as well as many indigenous trees that have been cut down over the years.
In addition to collecting particular varieties, Mattia and Marco want to help the ecosystem: that’s exactly why they’ve also planted Verbena bonariensis, highly appreciated by butterflies, and wild fennel, favoured by old world swallowtail butterflies in particular. They have also reserved the trunks of the fallen trees to insect nests, and have built a pond with fish, also favoured by amphibians and many birds. The garden is, in fact, a wondrous parade of tits and many other birds that can benefit from the feeders distributed around this area – the green space is also loved by dogs, cats, geese and chickens – animals extremely useful for maintaining the ecological balance without the need for any pesticides.

Winter is a particularly interesting season, as the garden grows rich in daphne, dogwood with coloured bark, sweetshrubs, arrowwood (Viburnum bodnantense), berry apple trees, willows (the amazing Salix gracilistyla “Mount Aso”), paper brush, Poncirus trifloliata, mahonias (including three thornless varieties, Mahonia eurybracteata “Nahihira”, “Sweet Caress”, and “Sweet Winter”), hellebores, sarcococcas, ferns, but above all witch-hazel (Hamamelis), with 35 cultivars, coming from all over the world, some still young, some others over 10-ft tall; they come from the previous garden of Mattia and Marco and have successfully coped with their transplant thanks to their compact root system and slow growth.

The garden is open throughout the year on free-access open days, enlivened by tasty snacks prepared by Marco, also an excellent cook; on request, it can be visited at other times.

For more information, please visit the official Facebook page: Jay Blue House Garden page

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)