Ever since I saw the movie ‘Room With a View’ in 1986 I wanted to visit Lake Como. It was my first year at university and I was bored. Bored with lectures in dusty windowless lecture theatres. Lectures, given by old people about old people who’d been remarkable and most of whom were dead. I was living at home in Auckland. My parents were in the process of splitting up. Auckland was in the process of being knocked down. It was a year before the stock market crash and many of the colonial-era buildings were being replaced with tall glass towers.
Lake Como was everything that Auckland wasn’t. It had history and beauty. It seemed like the sort of place that wouldn’t ever change.
The Lavedo headland, near Lenno, Lake Como, Italy, June 2018.
It took 32 years to get to Lake Como, but I got there eventually. I travelled there in June this year with my husband and son. We stayed in a town called Lenno.
Villa Balbianello was a short walk from our hotel, along the waterfront, past the cafes and dozens of bobbing boats, past the Lido swimming pool and along the Lavedo headland. The heat was oppressive.
The villa sits at the end of a headland, surrounded by trees. It comprises of a 16th century monastery that was extended and added onto in the 18th century.
In 1974 a rich Italian explorer called Guido Monzino ended up owning Villa Balbianello.
The driveway leading to Villa Balbianello.
Villa Balbianello.
The garden is designed for people who arrive by boat. It has its own marina and long sweeping steps and path up to the Villa. We arrived by road, at the back of the garden.
Lake Como looking south towards Isola Comacina.
This rose bush was one of the only plants flowering (apart from the geraniums in pots).
This three-arched loggia houses the library and music room.
The view from the library.
The library.
Guido Monzino made many changes to the Villa. He was mad about chandeliers.
The view north to Bellagio and George Clooney.
The view onto the terrace where James Bond was convalescing in the movie Casino Royale.
Guido Monzino could’ve been a character in a James Bond movie. The eccentric rich explorer lived with his mother and liked to collect expensive things. He had secret passages built in the house. This was a precaution to protect himself against kidnappers. Kidnapping was a big threat for wealthy people in 70s Italy. The lady who led the tour around Guido’s house must’ve been a Russian secret agent in a Bond movie. She was built like a tank and had a voice like a Shipunov 2A42. No one would’ve messed with her.
The three-tiered loggia.
The vine Ficus pumilia grows around the loggia and is trained up its pillars.
This is the main path from the marina. It is lined with plane trees that have been sculpted into candelabra shapes and the trunks wrapped in ivy.
The garden had to be cut out of solid rock in places.
As well as the plane trees there are also cypresses, holm oaks, beech trees, camphor trees and magnolias.
This is the old monastery. The ground floor used to be Guido Monzino’s kitchen, but is now the gift shop.
The entrance from the marina.
The view of the marina.
There is wisteria growing along the walls and fences all the way from the landing stage at the marina to the Wisteria Terrace.
The marina and wisteria.
This is the path to the terrace with the large holm oak. It was trained into this mushroom shape so that Guido Monzino had unobstructed views of the lake. This is the terrace where James Bond was convalescing.
A view of the cliff and the three tiered loggia.
Villa Balbianello is a green garden. Colour is insignificant. It is texture and form that are important, the contrasting size and shape of leaves, the varying silhouettes of trees and sculptures and the variations in tone and texture of the foliage, rocks and trunks of trees. I love the balance between the natural and the highly modified.
If it weren’t for the hordes of tourists it would’ve been a peaceful, contemplative sort of garden. It is grand in scale, but the hilly site and all the terracing make the garden feel intimate.
A room with a view, looking north.
I’m no expert on garden history, but if I had to classify the style of the garden at Villa Balbianello I’d call it Romantic-Baroque with a wild streak. It’s restrained and opulent with its high maintenance trees, vines and lawns. But its bare cliff faces and gnarled pines gave it a much needed rugged beauty.
The Villa was heaving with tourists but what did I expect - I was one of them. Most people were there because of its various movie connections rather than its former owner, an Italian explorer. It was on most people’s Lake Como itinerary along with trying to spot George Clooney in Bellagio. We all were looking for that mythical Lake Como and instead we found a bunch of sunburnt tourists in shorts waving selfie sticks and bottles of water.
There was a man whose job it was to sweep the gravel off the lawn and back onto the paths. It was little wonder that there wasn’t a tree or leaf out of place. There must’ve been a team of gardeners who clipped and pampered the garden after the gates were shut in the evening. Everything about the garden was manicured.
This was the second Italian garden that I visited on my trip. And for the second time I was thinking about the beauty of foliage and different ways that I could use it. In New Zealand we take foliage for granted. Most of our indigenous plants are more foliage than flower. Our native forests are thick walls of impenetrable green. While my temperate suburban garden couldn’t ever replicate a grand Mediterranean villa, I could borrow a few tree and foliage ideas.
Looking up the side of my house to my front garden.
My cabbage tree Cordyline australis, tree fern Cyathea medullaris and bay tree Laurus nobilis have great silhouettes. It’s only since visiting Villa Balbianello that I appreciated these trees for their shapes.
Oak tree Quercus robur.
I have two big old trees, an oak and a sycamore. They grow at the back of the garden. They’re deciduous, which is a good thing and makes it possible to have big trees in a small garden. They are living changing sculptures that provide grandeur, scale and a feeling of permanence. Thomas D Church, an American landscape architect, was a big advocate for keeping big trees in suburban gardens. You only have to drive around a new housing subdivision to get the feeling of how soulless a place is without big trees.
Acer palmatum ‘Winter Flame’.
I love maples. I have 4 of them, two in my courtyard garden, one of which is ‘Winter Flame’. Because my maples are deciduous I’m able to grow them in spots that get good summer sun but poor winter sun. When I was a kid one of my neighbours had a weeping maple in a garden on their deck. It’s feathery amber leaves and lovely posture have stayed with me.
Podophyllum ‘Kaleidoscope’ and Parataniwha Elatostema rugosum.
My fernery and stumpless stumpery is a shady foliage garden. I’m very excited that the Podophyllum ‘Kaleidoscope’ has grown two new leaves and that the Parataniwha Elatostema rugosum is thriving (it hates to dry out - I planted one in my front garden under the karo tree and it died) .
Kowhai Sophora microphylla (I think) and karo tree Pittosporum crassifolium.
My Kowhai and karo trees are great small trees. I’ve come to appreciate the way they complement each other, especially after some of the neighbouring bushes were chopped down ( they were crowding and obscuring the view). I never tire of looking at the textures created by the grey lichen and moss on the kowhai’s trunk and branches, and the grey-green leaves of the karo.
Disporum sessile ‘Variegatum’.
Disporum sessile is a slow creeping plant for shady places. It’s beautiful. This is the first year I noticed its flowers. I had to kneel down very low to take its photograph. It dies down in autumn and reappears in spring. I’m going to have a go at taking some cuttings from it. Thanks to a recent $5.00 book purchase I can propagate almost anything.
Gardening books that I bought at a Lions book fair a couple of weeks ago.