I would like to say I am fresh back from the south of Italy, but fresh might be slightly overstating the case. Safely back perhaps. I have never been to this southern area before. We didn’t find anybody who spoke English in Palermo (Sicily), either local or traveller. No English at all and no understanding of any English which gave some impetus to learning a few basic words and phrases in Italian from the back of Lonely Planet Guide.

On a previous visit, Mark and I tripped around the lakes district in the north and saw grand established gardens in the Italian tradition. I had been anticipating similar evidence of great wealth in pockets of the south at least, but if they are there, we did not find them. Sicily, it must be said, has a much hotter and drier climate, more akin to its close neighbours in North Africa, which makes gardening difficult and it remains an area of considerable poverty.

I photocopied the relevant pages from renowned garden writer Charles Quest Ritson’s weighty tome, Gardens of Europe, and following his advice, we sought out Orto Botanico di Palermo (the Bot Gardens). I had thought to find a little more than we did in terms of style and presentation. They hold a notable collection of cacti and succulents which was displayed with all the panache of a working nursery. All plants were in matched terracotta pots serried along wire shelves. If you have a passion for cacti and succulents, there may have been much of interest but I find them distinctly less than riveting.

Plants in serried ranks at Orto Botanico

The glasshouses were sparsely furnished with more plants on wire shelves. There were some fine trees growing amongst the dry dust outside but most looked a little hard done by. A recent planting of cycads in the tough kikuya grass was just getting established, although there were more mature specimens of both palms and cycads. A most remarkable plant was a fig tree (ficus macrophylla). Now over 160 years old, it was of enormous proportions and clearly working on a bid for total domination. It puts roots out from on high (known as aerial roots) and when they reach the ground, they bed in giving a multi stemmed effect on a rather intimidating scale.

The ficus bid for total domination at Orto Botanico

The avenue of false kapok trees (Chorisia speciosa) was attractive but overall I was a little underwhelmed by Palermo’s Orto Botanico.

On the mainland, we sought out Villa Cimbrone in Ravello on the Amalfi Coast. It was a slight mission to get there. The public transport is frequent and cheap, but not for those of a nervous disposition. In this area, the roads are extremely narrow, bordered on one side by an unprotected drop of hundreds of metres to the sea, extremely winding with corners so tight that at times the buses have to reverse up and make more than one attempt to get around, all the while being challenged by speeding Vespas, Fiats and Smart Cars driven by fearless locals.

Villa Cimbrone was actually landscaped by an Englishman at the turn of the twentieth century on the site of a neglected Roman estate and is still hailed as a significant garden in the English-Italian style. Now a hotel, I can only say that it must have been grander in its early days. The Avenue of Immensity formed the central axis and it was certainly impressive. It was an extremely long and wide sweep which led us down under festoons of wisteria, flanked by pinus pinea and platanus orientalis, statuary and terracotta pots. It culminated in an open Doric temple leading to the Terrace of Infinity. This was a large belvedere balcony adorned by eighteenth century marble busts, with an astounding view of the Amalfi Coast and the hugely charming villages and citrus groves which tumble down the near vertical hills.

The Terrace of Infinity at Villa Cimbrone

But that was as good as it got. The brochure claimed “an infinite variety of exotic flowers and plants” beside the Avenue of Immensity – but these were mostly agapanthus, with, from memory, some cleomes. The Seat Of Mercury, a large bronze statue of the gods’ messenger at rest, was set in a dirt bowl. The rose terrace was so poor it was ludicrous. Even allowing for the fact that it was only late spring, I could not believe that the roses were ever going to impress and row upon row of pink and red bedding begonias are too municipal altogether.

The gothic crypt (now a functions centre) was magic. I do like the gothic style. The cloister was attractive – a Norman-Sicilian-Arabian courtyard. The traditional Italian statuary fitted right in to the whole environment and gave me cause yet again to reflect that it is no wonder that it looks so out of place in New Zealand gardens where we lack the history and the tradition which anchors this ornamentation in context. But it is the architecture and the setting which are the redeeming features of this garden, certainly not current gardening practice.

In terms of gardening, the most charming sight I saw was a simple scene of wildflowers at the Palatine in Rome and that was clearly serendipity.

Serendipity at the Palatine in Rome

I did feel a little vindicated on another score. A month or two ago, I wrote a column debunking the myth of Marlborough’s vineyards being romantic and evocative of rural Italy, an opinion which caused a colleague to take umbrage. The vineyards, olive and citrus groves I saw in Italy bore no resemblance at all the sterile mono culture of Marlborough with its rows of tanalised posts and wires and not a single stray plant allowed to creep into the environment. Italy does not appear to have our obsession with Round Up so there is a profusion of growth and the vineyards and orchards are small, mixed and cheek by jowl. Instead of milled, tanalised timber, supports were crafted from branches which looked similar to our native manuka. While I may not have been impressed by the formal gardening efforts I saw on this visit, the agriculture and rural landscape were impossibly romantic and about as far from New Zealand practice as you can get. Given that Italy has been that way for a very long time, I suspect that their approach is considerably more sustainable than the green desert technique we favour in our own countryside.

Elder Daughter gave me a pedometer one birthday and I was a little surprised to find that in the course of a normal day, I cover around 8km. When I come to London, I am deeply grateful that I am used to being on my feet. It prepares me in some way for the great distances I end up walking.

With a few days before London daughter and I brave Ryan Air (even more budget than EasyJet) for a flight to Sicily, I decided to follow up some of the private gardens open under the National Gardens Scheme. We have followed this with interest on the Living Channel, where the programme Open Gardens charts the process of assessment, selection and open day.

There is real status in being accepted by the NGS, even though it is entirely charitable and garden owners may open for as little as three hours on one particular day of the year. On Sunday afternoon, I braved pouring rain and shoes that leaked to find my way to Chiswick on the banks of the Thames where there was a cluster of four gardens open for the afternoon. I think this enclave of antique real estate is referred to as a mews. Highly valued terrace houses. Terraced housing means that the only access to the rear garden is … through the house. Fortunately the rain stopped. It certainly gives opening one’s garden to the public a new dimension, having a few score of people tramping through your home. This being London, the gardens are the width of the house – in other words, as little as one room and a passageway wide or maybe five to seven metres. One garden was serving teas in a miniscule back plot where six people were a crowd. But old style. Nobody asked here if you wanted gumboot tea or Earl Grey. No, in a line which I must store away for future use, I was offered Earl Grey or Assam.

I was interested in the whole process of assessment and selection of the NGS gardens (it can be a bit of a thorny issue, that one, as some of us know well in Taranaki) and also to set benchmarks and establish points of comparison for our festival gardens, both on that Sunday and the following day when I travelled to another small garden which opened by appointment. As a garden visitor, I certainly felt privileged to gain entry to private gardens which would otherwise be closed to me. These are domestic gardens which don’t even pretend to sit up alongside the renowned top end UK gardens of private origin, such as Sissinghurst and Great Dixter. And what can I say? It was a privilege. They are different to gardens at home. Our Rhododendron Festival gardens can hold their heads up high. I will say no more.

I had planned to finally make my pilgrimage to Wisley, the Royal Horticultural Gardens south of London. Their website showed much improved public transport links but once here, I realised that even so a day visit was going to involve five hours of travel and multiple changes. I was not that determined after all. Fortune may favour the bold but I am not suicidal so I won’t drive in London and from the tranquillity of home in Tikorangi, I tend to underestimate the effort it takes to travel across and through this city, let alone heading out to farther reaches. So I compromised with a return visit to Kew, the Royal Botanic Gardens which are easily reached by public transport.

I doubt that Kew could ever disappoint. They are botanic gardens on a grand scale. The British were great collectors and while I feel uncomfortable at some of the museums which represent acquisition and at times pillaging and theft from around the world on a scale which defies comprehension, the plant collecting and botanical classification work is much safer territory.

There is something for everyone at Kew. On an early summer’s day when the forecast was for temperatures around 25 degrees, it was in fact closer to about 12 degrees but the place was still teaming with people, including many children (it is mid term here) most of whom seemed to be called names like Oscar, Imogen and Henry and who were extremely well behaved. However, Kew is very spacious and can accommodate large numbers of people, although I probably met a goodly proportion of them on the newly opened treetop walkway. Treetop walkways are remarkable feats of engineering and Kew’s one has apparently been installed with minimal damage to the environment, avoiding even the visually polluting oversized pylons which seem to be a feature in others. For mild sufferers of vertigo such as me, they lose a little impact because one avoids looking straight down, preferring instead the safety of long views, and they are perhaps more novelty than revelation. But Kew must be leading the way in making public gardens and parks educative and everywhere the drive to inform and to conserve is threaded through the garden visitor experience. I can understand the use of some novelty and gimmickry if the outcome is positive. The importance of places such as Kew, set in incredibly overcrowded and hyped cities, can not be overstated, let alone the contribution to global conservation through the botanical research and collections.

I was most delighted by the woodland plantings of herbaceous material, by the alpine gardens and, surprisingly, by an open air photographic exhibition. The International Garden Photographer of the Year is available at www.igpoty.com if you want to see some lovely imagery. The alpine gardens are interesting because our climate at home is just too warm and humid to manage this restrained style of display but the woodland and herbaceous plantings are an area where I gathered ideas and learned from established practice.

And nothing to do with gardening, but I was amused to see Harter and Loveless Solicitors on Caledonian Road. I wonder if Mr Harter does matrimonials while Mr Loveless is forever destined to do neutral conveyancing?