LA MOSTRA DI ORTICOLA

La Mostra di Orticola !

This winter I was asked to design the entrance area of Orticola, the Italian little sister of the Chelsea Flower Show.

This show is been organised by the “The Lombard Horticultural Society Orticola” an historic association with birth on 1854.

Its takes place at Milan, at the Giardini Pubblici Indro Montanelli at the first weekend of May.

This park is one of the big, green areas Milan has to offer and its transformed for one week end in early spring in to a

The show is concentrating totally on nurseries and their plant material. Customers come and can tough - smell - ask for advise – buy – or simply enjoy the wonderful surroundings.

You have nurseries coming from all Italy, but also from the nearby areas of France and this year I heard, there are also coming some nursery from the eastern countries.

Its such a wonderful atmosphere, seeing people carrying away happily their new treasure and you see them already diggingtheir plants in and impatiently waiting for their blossom.

The brief left me totally freedom in how to use the space and in the choice of the plant material, apart of the strategic needs of an entrance area : Entrance-Exit- Ect.

I got to know, that, for the first time this year, a nursery with Succulents, Cactaceae and

Palmae was coming too. That inspired me to use a totally new range of plants for the entrance

area.

Pachycereus pringlei and Yucca rostrata are positioned in the middle row, smoothed up

by Nasella tenuissima . On the outside the visitor is accompanied by high rows, composed by

Thamnochortus fraternus + T. insignis + Elegia tectorum .For my side I find the differences

in foliage and movement between the spiky and the smooth plants so very much energising.

(Fotos by Marco Ferrante)