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San Giuliano is an ancient farm of the Marquises Paternò-Castello, located in Villasmundo, standing among a 123-acre citrus grove.
The actual farmhouse, dating back to the 1400s and surrounded by centuries-old olive trees and vineyards, was used for the production of corn, wine and oil until the 1970s. Then, it was converted into citrus groves, mainly featuring the orange trees planted and grown from the XIX century onward.

Today, the company grows oranges, lemons, grapefruits, mandarins, clementines and bitter oranges (mainly for the production of jams), using organic farming techniques. It also offers extra virgin olive oil and three brands of wine obtained with Tempranillo, Alicante, Syrah, Petit Verdot, Nero d’Avola, and Merlot grapes. Oil and wine are actually produced by Giuseppe Paternò Castello di San Giuliano in cooperation with the agronomist Antonio Mandolfo and the winemaker Peter Vinding-Diers.

In the past, there was no garden, only a row of Pinus pinea, dating back to the 1930s and growing in front of the main building; in 1990, the owners of the farm asked the landscape architect Oliva di Collobiano to build the current 10-acre “Giardinetto”.
This new green area is arranged in four themed-sections delimited by dry stone walls and irrigated by the “saie”: the traditional Arab-derived irrigation ditches.
There’s the Arab garden, with ponds and water lilies, the tropical garden, with palm trees and large cacti, the aromatic garden, with lavender, thyme, sage, myrtle, and other fragrant plants, and the Mediterranean garden, with grapefruits and roses.

Since 2002, the “Giardinetto” has been looked after by head gardener Rachel Lamb and, although it is believed to reach its maximum splendour in spring, it is just as beautiful and interesting between summer and autumn, when the plants vegetate again after the dry summers.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)