A tranquil garden at a Tuscan villa that makes the most of its spectacular setting
Tommaso del Buono has designed many a garden in the UK, having trained in landscape architecture at the University of Greenwich in the 1980s and worked with Arabella Lennox-Boyd for 10 years before he set up his London-based practice with Paul Gazerwitz in 2000. But it is to his Italian roots that Tommaso has returned more recently, in order to focus on a series of projects - both public and private - from a new studio in Florence. Among them is this tranquil garden near Capalbio, in southern Tuscany.
Set out around a villa with far-reaching views over a wide, vine-filled valley, the garden was designed to soften the lines of the building and frame the views. Stylish and contemporary, it has been carefully planned to include a pool garden, various seating areas and an outdoor kitchen adjacent to a terraced vegetable garden, with the formal areas kept to a minimum to play to the sweeping vistas.
Within the strong bones of this garden is an intricate network of plants with masses of evergreen texture and a seasonal influx of flowers that makes the garden come alive in August, which is when the family spends most time there. At the front of the house, the view is kept open, with flowing borders of nepeta, roses and hardy, drought-tolerant evergreens, such as Westringia fruticosa and Pseudodictamnus mediterraneus. An avenue of umbrella-clipped plane trees provides a shady bower, which acts as a draw to anyone descending the wide grassy steps at the side of the house. While the planting is kept simple around the terrace at the front of the house, so as not to detract from the view, Tommaso wanted to bring more diversity to the planting in other areas - but without increasing the level of maintenance. He introduced a new gravel garden as a kind of antechamber to the pool, which lies to one side of the house, with stepping-stone pavers leading you through this area and giving a long view towards a bougainvillea-clad pergola.
In the gravel garden, a mix of tough evergreens such as Pistacia lentiscus and Myrtus communis contrast with the silvery grey foliage of Helichrysum italicum and Jacobaca maritima (formerly Senecio cineraria) ‘Silver Dust’. The spiky forms of agaves and architectural melianthus provide additional layers of interest, setting off the Mexican sage (Salvia leucantha) that flowers from August through into autumn. Now established, this part of the garden needs no irrigation, as the plants are drought-tolerant varieties that we could all be growing as temperatures rise in Britain.
Beyond the gravel garden is the star-gazing area with a firepit at its centre. Tommaso has reused some existing pampas grasses to shape this space and to give it a sense of enclosure. 'I have learned to love the pampas grasses,' he confesses, grinning. 'If you break them up with other grasses and perennials and arrange them naturalistically, they can actually be quite beautiful.'
The pool garden is deliberately minimalist, with a small lawn bordered by a path of Venetian trachyte stone, which also edges the swimming pool. The far side is lined with a serried row of opuntia or prickly pear - an unexpected plant choice that works brilliantly, its abstract forms casting interesting reflections onto the pool. 'It makes a good foreground to the long view,' explains Tommaso. Ribbons of blue Agapanthus africanus flank the lawn on two sides, their evergreen leaves providing year-round colour and their flowers standing out against the retaining walls behind. Saving the mixed planting for other parts of the garden, Tommaso has added to the clean-cut geometry in this area by using simple, repeated forms of the same plant.
Above the pool garden, the dining terrace is cocooned in clipped rosemary and teucrium, with summer-flowering crape myrtles, Lagerstroemia indica, framing the composition on either side. The kitchen garden lies above, with produce grown in simple timber raised beds on wide, stepped terraces. An elegant stone-topped table and cane armchairs feel entirely at home in the dining area. 'In this part of the garden, we worked closely with the interior designer Virginie Droulers, who specified the lights and furniture for the outdoor kitchen, so the garden is linked closely to the style inside the house,' says Tommaso. 'The owner deals in contemporary photography and the villa itself is modern, so the garden needed to have the same feel.' Two steel-framed pergolas provide structure and shade, wound around with bougainvillea and scented Rosa 'Albéric Barbier' - one over the dining terrace and the other above a comfortable seating area with polished concrete benches and outdoor furniture by Piet Boon. This is where the family like to retreat to after a swim in high summer. 'The idea is that they can pick salad leaves or vegetables to cook in the outdoor kitchen, have lunch around the table and then snooze on the sofas under the pergola in the afternoon heat,' says Tommaso.
It all sounds idyllic. This is a garden that has been thoughtfully planned to work with the surrounding landscape, to provide diversity and sustainable planting and to become an attractive, sensory outdoor room. But more than anything else, it is a garden designed to be used and enjoyed. Often an element that is overlooked in garden design, the practical, utilitarian structure of a space is crucial to its success. In this elegant garden, Tommaso has brought it all together with aplomb.
Tommaso del Buono: tdbstudio.co.uk
Richard Bloom1/7Framed by Californian pepper trees, the bougainvillea-clad pergola provides a shaded seating area.
Richard Bloom2/7A path of Venetian trachyte stone leads through the dry garden towards the pool area, with yellow-flowered Helichrysum italicum and swaying stems of purple Verbena bonariensis on the left and a pale mound of Jacobaea maritima ‘Silver Dust’ on the right. Tactile grasses, such as feathery Stipa tenuissima and fountain-like Miscanthus sinensis 'Gracillimus', add structure and movement.
Richard Bloom3/7Designed for minimal maintenance, the gravel garden features a palette of Mediterranean plants that do not require watering. Small shrubs and trees, including Punica granatum (left foreground) and two Cercis siliquastrum silhouetted against the view, anchor a textured perennial scheme of contrasting forms and foliage enlivened by mauve Verbena bonariensis and Salvia leucantha.
Richard Bloom4/7A stone-topped table and cane chairs adjoin the outdoor kitchen on the dining terrace.
Richard Bloom5/7Blue spires of Russian sage flank a path to the pool, past crape myrtles and rosemary hedges.
Richard Bloom6/7Clipped evergreens, including myrtle and silver Teucrium fruticans, lead the eye up to the dining terrace.
Richard Bloom7/7Morning light catches Jacobaea maritima ‘Silver Dust’ in the gravel garden.
