Jane’s Tuscan garden

 

It all began in 1976

 

When my husband, architect Bruno Sacchi, bought the land it was abandoned, tended only by the retired farmer whose family had worked it for over two centuries. Together we prepared the soil for new olives.

As the lorry arrived with young trees, the farmer’s eyes filled with tears — he couldn’t recall the last time anything had been planted.

That was the beginning of my garden.

I bought a small tractor…

In 1985 my marriage ended and I returned to the UK; Bruno stayed, refusing to prune — “how would you like it if someone cut off your arm?” After his death in 2011, I found the grove overgrown. With my son and daughter, we began restoring the property.

and, to my neighbours’ amusement, ploughed and harrowed, tended old olives, made hay (using the old ox cart as a trailer), kept chickens, ducks, goats, geese, two children, and grew vegetables.

The garden’s renewal began in 2011

Since then, I have been planting the garden: holm oak, bay, Elaeagnus, rosemary hedges; banks of salvias, Rosa Mutabilis, ceanothus, stachys, nepeta, iris, lavender, grasses, and jasmine for June’s perfume. 

 

In 2017 we renovated the barn and added a pool…

In 2017 we renovated the barn and added a pool, installing irrigation — until the well ran dry. Instead of new lawns, I turned to Olivier Filippi’s dry garden designs.

With Luigi Broghi’s guidance, we began gravel gardens of plumbago, cistus, erigeron, thyme, and helichrysum, resilient to +40°C summers and -10°C winters.

Today the garden thrives with little water; butterflies and jasmine scent the walks, olives are once more tended.

 

in 2024 a new well

in 2024 a new well secured our medieval tank.
The land, once abandoned, now breathes again.

Follow the adventures…

 @Janes_tuscan_garden