The Landriana Gardens

The Landriana Gardens located at Tor San Lorenzo in Ardea, about 30 km from Rome, extend for 10 hectares within a large estate on the coast and are characterized by being divided into "rooms", each with botanical characteristics that make it unique, such as the valley of ancient roses and the lake, the orange garden, the white avenue, the olive garden, the blue lawn and the Spanish basin.

The Gardens were conceived in the late 1950s, when the Marquis Gallarati-Scotti and his wife, Lavinia Taverna, bought a rural property along the Lazio coast. At that time, pines and eucalyptus trees were planted on the land devoid of trees and shrubs, with the aim of providing shade for the farmhouse and curbing the winds blowing from the sea only a few kilometers away.

After this first phase, Lavinia Taverna wanted to give a structure and a design to the gardens and so, towards the end of the 1960s, thanks to the creativity of the English architect and landscape architect Russel Page, the Gardens were completely redesigned, taking on the current appearance.

Page divided the area into geometric spaces circumscribed by hedges and paths, in order to impose order on the magnificent collection of hundreds of varieties of plants of the Marchesa.

Thus were conceived the "rooms" which over time took on the connotation of today. 

Among these is the Viale Bianco, a flight of steps that flanking a hill inside the property leads to an artificial lake.

The gardens were recently opened to the public and are still home to the gardening fair. A project curated by the landscape architect Ippolito Pizzetti is currently underway, which involves the extension of 25 hectares of the area.