This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)

La Rosaiola garden is in Pertengo, a small town in the province of Vercelli, surrounded by rice paddies.

The garden includes an Italian section and a rose garden. The first is geometric and regular, made of flower beds bordered by topiary-pruned hedges. The rose garden, which was created where a barnyard and a rice paddy used to be, originally celebrated and evoked the popular legend about the Virgin Mary appearing among the beautiful flowers and making them bloom.

The rose garden can be accessed by a grassy path, from the main gate, winding through several flower beds. The roses collected here are about one hundred, with different in colours and bearings; they surround a large lawn which houses a centipede sculpture.

There are also some climbing vines attached to the pillars and other supports, as well as several specimens of Rosa “Rimosa”, with yellow corollas, growing on the arches along the path.
The garden features several boxwood plants (Buxus sempervirens) pruned with the shapes of animals and assorted figures, such as the large horse with a jockey about to jump the obstacle.

The roses are surrounded by shrubs and grass, as English-like borders, including peonies, catnips, tree mallows, daylilies, plantain lilies and Rodgersia pinnata; tree species include willows and silver maples (Acer saccharinum) emerging from the square hedges of devilwood, holly, cherry laurel and boxwood.

An orchard surrounds the rose garden, separating it from the rice paddies, and thus anticipating its flowering.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)