The Gardens of Venice

When I told my gardening friends that I was traveling to Italy they asked me to be sure to take pictures of Italian gardens. That’s what gardeners do. We are always comparing one garden to another. Always looking for ideas and innovations that we can borrow from our more experienced, more talented friends.

Container gardens are very popular.

Venice is built on wooden pilings placed closely together and driven into the sand beneath the lagoon. The pilings are then topped by a layer of horizontal timbers which in turn is topped by multiple layers of stone and eventually the streets, foundations and buildings of the city. As you might guess, traditional gardens are rare. Gardens require adding a layer of soil on top of the structural layers that form the foundation of Venice.

Gardeners at every level.

Third floor balcony garden.

I saw this window box in Burano, one of the Venetian islands.

But container and window box gardens abound. Altana (rooftop) gardens are less frequent. There only seem to be a handful of courtyard gardens. There is a possibility that many others exist but remain unseen by tourist visitors. Whatever form the Venetian gardens take, it is clear that the small bits of color and greenery that they offer are important.

View from the altana at Ca’ d’Oro

Gardens of Venice

Ground level garden along the Grand Canal.