Plant booths ranged from those selling house plants that your would find in a US box store, to rare treasures for the keenest plant collector. I particularly enjoyed chatting, despite the language barrier, with several specialty nurseryman, including Slovenia nurseryman, Gorazd Mauer of Rifnik Garden and Plants, who was selling an array of rare treasures, that included three of our PDN/JLBG introductions, Gloxinia ‘Evita’ Gloxinia ‘Little Red’, and Spigelia marilandica ‘Little Redhead’.
Benjamin and Najwa de Ladoucette of the French nursery, Les Pepinieres Bellet de Ladoucette, have botanized around the world, and had a both of plant treasures that even the most keep collector would lust for. My most lustful find at their booth is Fatsia japonica ‘Tengu Nishiki’.
A few of the more unusual plants encountered in the show included Atriplex hymenolytra from the Southwest US, a dwarf Asian poison ivy (Toxicodendron) from Taiwan, and a dwarf Bougainvillea ‘Mini Thai’
I found it quite humorous that pedestrian barricades at the show, were all labeled as New Jersey barriers, an unofficial term, first coined in 1955 by NJ residents for the multitude of concrete barriers that occupied the state during times of road construction. I’m sure there’s a fascinating story, how this term became the brand name of barriers in Italy.
Sat Sept 5 – Murabilia, A Celebration of Plants and People
The festival ran from 10-7 daily, but there still wasn’t adequate time for me to visit with all of the vendors. Saturday was also a solid day of plant presentations at the show, all scheduled back-to-back, without any scheduled breaks. Each talk was by a world renown garden authority, so even taking a bathroom break meant missing something meaningful. While the talks were all presented in English, Italian doctor and plantsman Alberto Grossi, kindly served as translator. By the end of the talks, my plant desiderata list had grown significantly.
The array of international speakers and attendees was extraordinary. This was an invaluable opportunity to reconnect with old plant friends, meet new ones, and meet in person, plant friends who I’d previously only known on-line. It was especially great to finally meet the amazing Italian plantsman, Angello Porcelli, with whom we’d been chatting on-line and swapping plants for decades. One of Angelo’s recent hybrids, a cross of Arum creticum x Arum palaestinum, has just been named in his honor as Arum x porcellii.
It was also great to meet Abraham Rammeloo, the director of Belgium’s Arboretum Kalmthout, a garden I’d wanted to visit for decades. I had a blast chatting with keen plantsman, Razvan Chisu, a UK resident, who immigrated there from his native Transylvania. Razvan lectures around the world, as well assisting with the Trees and Shrubs On-line project. Another plant friend that I hadn’t seen in many years, was French plantsman and plant explorer, Olivier Colin, so I was thrilled to catch up with him.
Murabilia offered the chance to meet so many new people, it was hard to keep track of them all. An unexpected awards ceremony at the festival, not only left me with another plaque, but more importantly, allowed me to meet the other recipient, the amazing Anna Zegna, of the Internationally renowned Zegna fashion empire. Anna, the former President of Zegna Fashions, now leads her family’s’ non-profit effort to maintain and restore a 24,000 natural area, Oasi Zegna, for public use, about 3.5 hours north. Perhaps a future botanizing trip is in order.
Part 7 coming tomorrow!
How lovely. Wish I could afford to visit there. It looks utterly magical.