A genius from Gradisca


Matteo La Civita is without a shadow of doubt a genius concerning Peonies. His stern obsession for the genealogy of Peonia Rockii is absolutely fascinating. He grows in his enchanting garden in Gradisca, relatively close to the Beautiful Triest, with the fanstastic coast and the neartby Slovenia and Croatia.

    In this magnificent setting, in Arcadic Friuli, garden designer Matteo has a breathtaking garden, and fantastic collection of bulbs and rare plants in general.

        Matteo has the most comprenensive collection of Peonia Rockii. The story of this species is fascinating and almost romantic, and for decades, what was considered a species was in fact a hybrid.
it was originally seen by Farrer and poorly described.

 Then a very mysterious guy Mr Rock found some specimens and created a very romantic story on how he found them. Mr Joseph Rock was indded a very romantic figure. He was apparently the son of the buttler of a very rich guy who adopted him. He travelled all europe and egypt, and then emigrated to United states, and from new york, he moved to Honolulu.

 In a few weeks or months he learned hawaian language and he created the first Hawaian dictionary, became the first botanist of the island . He then went to Asia, and he assited the ferocious war between the chinese muslim and the tibetans. he recalls the latter s heads were used as decoration"young girls and children"'s heads staked around the military encampment. Ten to fifteen heads were fastened to the saddle of every Muslim cavalryman.The heads were "strung about the walls of the Moslem garrison like a garland of flowers." i will  talk about the story of the Rock s peony in another post. Now we are just enjoying Matteo s Peonies. I m insisting for him to sell them.what do you think about that? Will speak more about his collection next week