How to pleasently change your life with a rose group on Facebook

Thanks to a rose group :Il giardino e le rose, ( Gio aspis masullo pictured in  the top) i managed to meet fantastic people and get to know of fantastic events .
 For example last week i took a train to Veneto region .....
Last did I know I would  turn into a plant frolicking . Well I am totally lying, just the day before I went to see a talk by nurseryman Luigi Priola, in order to fetch some plants. i order a relative to an euphorbia i love to bits. Euphorbia Mellifera which i used to weed when working as a gardener in Kennington . The name says it all: Devil' s honey, a scented shrub like euphorbia. some selinums, berberis, unusual grasses. all the  horticultural arty-farty stuff.

                                                    Miriam from la Campanella nursery while planting the roses
Then being aware of being totally broke, i nonetheless ventured toward veneto. being dyspraxic, i lost the train and called my poor friend saying there will be some changes in the schedules. I improvidìsed to meet long lasting friends with whom I have collaborated: Vivaio La campanella old rose nursery and raziel bulbs. I entered in the secret chambers of treasures. Where millions of bare rooted where stocked after being harvested from the field where they have been grafted in the rootstock( a wild rose where the variety is grated) and now they were potting these roses. At Raziel i disturbed them, while they were busy in a similar manner potting millions and millions of bulbs.
        The day  day after  I asked my poor sancho to follow me in my don quijotisms and to go near Verona, to see a marvellous talk by Maurizio Usai and Matteo la Civita about their marvellous landscape designs.These two guys are known internationally.The talk, was sublime, amazing pictures, with a lot of verve between the two landscape architets. ( below bare rooted roses )

Before this event we managed to see a friend,  another landscape designer Luca Fadini, who showed us the gigantic valleverde garden centre, where he is the resident  garden architect. Was mesmerised by the big greenhouses, where they produce pelarginiums, poinsettias, cyclamens, with 70 employees, and the quality of the plant was superb, and the atmosphere was fairy tale like...
   Maurizio Usai and Elena Longo and fantastic organiser Gloriana Chiodi
The third  day,  we needed one hour to get there and Maurizio Usai and Elena Longo were helding a rose pruning workshop. Maurizio delighted us, with several insights of which I was totally unaware. The duo was absolutely stunning. Followed by  a delicious lunch ,  organised by Gloriana Chiodi (the mastermind behind all these events). There were many friends from the  fantastic facebook rose group: Il giardino e le rose. Giò Masullo is the leader and he was as usual so full of verve and adorable, then a stunning curly haired lady Monica, a lovable  and sensual Federica and a the heartbraker stud  Francesco. The gang woke up at 3 o clock to attend to the workshop. The practical side was held at Gloriana s park. Elena s way of pruning was totally opposite to Maurizio, but each was perfect to a different class of roses. Maurizio is more specialised in subtropical roses, the chinensis group, which abhor hard pruning (since the lymph is stored in the upper part of the shrub being in almost perennial activity) , while the european group due it s dormancy period, stores the lymph in the roots while not growing. We had some refreshments at Gloriana s beautiful house and it was lovely
  The last day there was a tour in the oldest botanical garden: the padova s garden. There was a reunion of the plant lovers , Adipa, marshalled by Patrizia Ianne( an international  fuchsia specialist) dispensing accademic knowledge about plants in such a witty and energetic manner it was pure bliss. Thanks to fantastic Giò I managed to visit magnuficent garden bt Muchele Calore. Michele is famous for its refined colour schemes of perennials mixed shrubs and grasses. Grasses where at their vernal garment, in the varous fawn, buff and beige hues. Of the most sophisticated impressions it was truly amazing.
I learnt a great deal from Usai, saw so many things i needed a whole week to recover from such beauties and the friendly atmosphere. Thank you

Last but absolutely not the least  is the picture of the great landscape designer Matteo La Civita famous for it s peonies and his designs. He lives in London

a breathtaking  lunch @Mirella Collavini (pictures taken from the web)


Mirella is without a shadow of doubt a grand Dame of gardening. Sheer elegance defines her, far from the obstentations of Modern society obsessed with selfies and self promotion Mirella oozes refinement in every spore:). More than being a Fern, she the lady of aspidistrias, rohdeas, tupistras, peliosanthes.

What aspidistras? you might be joking? wtf Aspidistras according to Gordon Comstock, the novel protagonist of : Keep the aspidistra flying, the epitome of the middle class failing to keep respectability. This extremely difficult plant to kill, which in a way could be part of the bridal bouquet of Hyacinth Bucket, pardon Bouquet, the star of Keeping of with appearences. Hyacinth, is "adorable" in her grotesque failed attempt to be a wannabee, a true posh, in the sense of pretending to be a social class which she does not belong, a modern bourgeois gentil'homme but with more grotesque hues than the drama by Moliére. Aspidistras were so famous that wikipedia suggest me ( I am not cheating i swear) that a famous popular song "The biggest aspidistra in the world" was a warime favourite in it's heyday.
   Mirella' s genius is to collected all, those  plants which were considered  worthless, too easy to grow  and not as chic as more difficult and  chic plants. Mirella has been the Lady of Violets, and she brought back these delightful delicacies out of oblivion. Beauties like: Viola di Udine, and conte de Brazzà were popularised again by her, and now her famous Violet days have been somewhat copied by others. Then came the commeliaceas period, in italian the were called Miseries due to their resilience, Then Impatiens, and so many others. Now she is planning to do a medieval farden in her small, yet marvellous austere garden,and her marvellous mansion. It is a modern garden, although the cloud topiaries would  suggest overwise. The exquisite pond hidden by the topiaries is the shrine of a beautiful  southafrican, white aponogeton flowering now in january. Close to the house some old wooden doors give a methaphysical, yet modern touch by the fact that these doors, separate the garden to a beautiful hallway of the garden to the garden. Behind these fake doors, beautiful specimens of Lee s Perpetual roses beautiful even in their bare, winter attire. 

          All the asp, are frpm the family of asparageaceas, as the common edible Aparagus. There are apparently 101 species of aspidistras only, 23 Peliosanthes, 17 Rodheas, 21 Tupistras. Mirella has almost finished the collection, and she was just telling us that ther last babies came from a russian nursery which collected the plants in Thailand, but had to send a friend to Russia, because the nursery does not delivery abroad. Apart from the species, the varieties are exquisite, with sublimes streaks or blotchts, giving the term variegation an artistic touch. The collection is displayed in her mansion s entrance, in such a grand yet subdued style. with big specimens in chinese pots, and the rest in simple yet eleongated vases. I was invited during a rare plant lunch( Adipa) where  beautiful centre table, where garnished with adianthum. mosses and snowdrops under a glass bell. Enormous vases with large branches of winter sweets, giving a theatrical setting to an elegant dining room, follerf by the most refined living room, adorned by art books, precolombian huacos and new guinea statues and an old fireplace. The lunch was filled with delightful conversations with Patrizia Ianne, and the other plant specialists. I felt a mere caveman. It ended with an accordéoniste playing .....