This post is also available in: Italian
At the Oritcolario exhibition and in Masino, many people were absolutely mesmerized by large, wonderful wreaths of berries…, they were actually rose hips, roses and hazel branches twisted and carefully intertwined by Lucia Mazzarello, who works for I giardini e le fronde nursery. Hung on a white door opening onto mysterious worlds, further demonstrated Lucia’s great artistic sensitivity.
Those wondrous wreaths were actually made up of twisted hazel branches (Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’) and bunches of rosehips of the ‘Zaffiro’ rose – a cultivar of Rosa canina. Lucia explained that those rose hips are more resistant and abundant, while they remain on the plant for a long time, and the branches feature very few thorns.
If you have the possibility, grow a ‘Sapphire’rose plant, just to collect the branches, planting it in a vegetable garden or in a slightly wild corner of your garden. Keep in mind that it can grow up to 8-ft high and 5-ft wide, featuring weeping 5-ft long branches. It blooms only once, in May, then begins to bear fruit. Very rustic and robust, it requires little attention, and the branches can be harvested when the rose hips are in different stages of ripeness, as they are always very beautiful. Be warned though: when deciding what to cut, spare the young shoots, erect and tender, which may have already grown from the lateral buds. They are, in fact, those responsible for the next year’s reproduction.
I Giardini e le Fronde nursery, located in Serravalle Scrivia (Al), is worth a visit in every season, but you should definitely go there at Christmas when it turns into a most evocative place, full of winter charm, beautiful wreaths, illuminated twigs of branches, pine cone decorations, ornamental apple trees, and many other berry plants in all their glory. Check out their website: http://www.igiardinielefronde.it/
Lucia and her husband Stefano are also garden design and maintenance experts and create fabulous fences with abandoned chestnut poles from the vineyards.
This post is also available in: Italian
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