The devil is in the details

by Anna Piussi

 

May 2014 and I’m perched on a plank, sponging off the tiny leaves of a Phillirea, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut. I’d volunteered to help Tommaso del Buono in setting up the garden with Paul Gaserwitz for that year’s Chelsea Flower Show, for which I’d contributed some research in Italy. When I’d arrived on site I’d guffawed at a young woman doing the same work on each leaf of a 26 metre long, 2.6 m tall hedge, which I’d have cleaned with a garden hose. Now I was jealous cause bay leaves are bigger and easier to clean.

The specialist firm Crocus had supplied most plants, and built the garden with meticulous care. The bay hedge had been prepared for them by Giorgio Tesi Group in Pistoia, where I had been to inspect them: they were grown in numbered pots side by side so they could be seamlessly reassembled on site, all leaves already facing the same way. The lemons were by Oscar Tintori,  decades-old specimens in traditional terracotta pots, I had sent a picture of me standing by one of them to prove that medium was definitely big enough. Each plant was perfect in itself, pruned and polished to perfection, and the warm weather brought out the fragrance of citrus and bay which enveloped the garden. This final touch, this seductive detail, must have contributed to the garden’s Gold Medal.