Modern lessons from the world’s oldest botanical garden

{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":9.36,"text":"Here is one of my rules: when in a foreign city, check for a botanical garden. "},{"start":14.102,"text":"Rome’s is a disappointment and Berlin’s needs an upgrade, but the botanical gardens in New York, Edinburgh and Munich are unmissable. "},{"start":20.918999999999997,"text":"Even those that fall between these extremes keep green thoughts alive in a temporarily urbanised mind. "},{"start":26.362,"text":"One green thought leads to another, as I have just found in Italy. "}],[{"start":30.4,"text":"Padua’s botanical garden in northern Italy traces its history back to 1545 and lays claim to be the oldest in existence. "},{"start":38.403999999999996,"text":"In Italy the 1540s were indeed a formative time for botanical gardens. "},{"start":42.747,"text":"Padua’s began with a vote by the Senate in Venice, Padua’s overlord, in May 1545. "},{"start":48.638999999999996,"text":"In December, Florence followed suit at the prompting of its grand duke Cosimo de Medici. "},{"start":53.544,"text":"While Pisa had a botanical garden before 1545, as a letter referring to it seems to prove, Padua’s claim to be the oldest rests on it being the botanical garden that has existed longest on the same site. "},{"start":65.262,"text":"Certainly, these Italian gardens are all older than any in England. "},{"start":69.042,"text":"The first English botanical garden is Oxford’s, founded in 1621 on the site of a medieval Jewish cemetery. "}],[{"start":76.47999999999999,"text":"I first saw Padua’s garden in a hot August 35 years ago. "},{"start":80.50899999999999,"text":"It was interesting, but in need of attention. "},{"start":83.15199999999999,"text":"It has received it since 2000 and is now in much better form. "},{"start":86.74399999999999,"text":"It is not only because it has a new visitor centre, Biodiversity Garden and Botanical Museum. "},{"start":91.91199999999999,"text":"Padua’s glasshouses still have a good collection of carnivorous plants and specimens of the small variety of palm tree that fascinated Goethe on his visit in 1786. "},{"start":100.74199999999999,"text":"He studied it carefully and went on to write a book on the “metamorphosis” of plants, arguing for an original Ur-plant from which all others derive. "},{"start":108.02199999999999,"text":"He had no idea of evolution and Darwin’s theories make his a curiosity. "}],[{"start":112.58999999999999,"text":"Padua’s garden was not just a site for his misunderstanding. "},{"start":116.25699999999999,"text":"He appreciated other plants, especially a scarlet-flowered outdoor climber that is still a mainstay of gardens in London and warm climates. "},{"start":123.38699999999999,"text":"Campsis radicans is extremely vigorous and willing to flower even in warm Britain, bearing those red-orange trumpet-shaped flowers that give it the popular name of Trumpet Vine. "},{"start":132.379,"text":"Its native home is the east coast of the US and southern Ontario. "}],[{"start":136.48,"text":"English settlers in Virginia were quick to send plants back home, though it was an invasive climber in the wild. "},{"start":142.384,"text":"By 1790, it was well established on Padua’s wall, where Goethe admired its magical effect like a tapestry, covering the wall with scarlet bells. "},{"start":151.089,"text":"The better form now is Madame Galen, one with bigger and better trumpets, which originated in Italy and was put on the market in the 1880s. "},{"start":158.519,"text":"I can never decide if in ordinary gardens its vivid flowers are worth all the space its vigorous stems occupy. "},{"start":164.32399999999998,"text":"It has no scent. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":166.56,"text":"Goethe knew our campsis as Bignonia, for many years its name in gardens. "},{"start":171.03900000000002,"text":"Padua’s garden was not founded for botany as we now understand it. "},{"start":174.757,"text":"In 1533 the city’s university had a professor for the “reading of Simples”: plants with therapeutic properties. "},{"start":181.049,"text":"The Padua garden was to be a garden of medicinal plants, linking up with this teaching. "},{"start":185.679,"text":"Its naming and taxonomy were not ours, but it had a superbly designed plan. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"

After his visit, Goethe wrote a book arguing for an original Ur-plant from which all others derive. He had no idea of evolution

"}],[{"start":191.12,"text":"The architect Andrea Moroni drew it at the very beginning. "},{"start":194.59900000000002,"text":"He was already working for the monastery that ceded the ground for the new garden: he devised a perfect circle in which individual flower beds would lie. "},{"start":202.279,"text":"The circle was defined by a perimeter of high walls against which there were 16 segmented beds. "},{"start":207.484,"text":"Further inside there was a second circle dominated by four rectangular subdivisions, each with a further pattern of flower beds. "}],[{"start":215.25,"text":"The outer circle of walls has been replaced by a rectangular one, but the curving segments are still visible and are mostly planted with fine trees. "},{"start":222.842,"text":"Further inside, the circle of the plan is still visible, as are the inner subdivisions and little flower beds. "},{"start":228.722,"text":"They are a testimony to meticulous and rational geometric planning. "},{"start":232.414,"text":"Botanical gardens should be based on an underlying notion of order, imposed by man on nature. "},{"start":237.657,"text":"Padua’s still is. "}],[{"start":240.12,"text":"The main inner subdivisions are defined by smart railings, also a later introduction, but the beds have a style that would be transferable to English gardens too. "},{"start":248.624,"text":"They are edged and divided by stone blocks laid vertically with one thin curved edge protruding just above ground level. "},{"start":254.86700000000002,"text":"Modern designers sometimes set brick on edge for a similar effect, but Padua’s stone blocks are more stylish. "}],[{"start":261.37,"text":"I measured the spacing to help you copy it. "},{"start":263.924,"text":"Most of the little beds are about 3ft wide and long. "},{"start":267.242,"text":"Some of them taper to a point and make a narrowing triangle, but others are a grid of squares. "},{"start":272.097,"text":"The paths between them are 4ft wide and surfaced with smart grey-yellow grit. "},{"start":276.452,"text":"No weeds poke through. "}],[{"start":279.01,"text":"Mild, sunny October is not hot August, but I found the outdoor plantings and the hundreds of pots more cheerful than on my former visit. "},{"start":286.43899999999996,"text":"Stone-edged beds of purple autumn crocuses and colchicums are rather smart, as are beds with red, not pink, amaryllis and even a grass with fluffy purple heads, Muehlenbergia capillaris, which is widely on sale in Britain. "},{"start":298.98199999999997,"text":"The stone edges prevent this muhly grass from becoming invasive. "}],[{"start":303.43,"text":"What most impressed me was the resistance of two particular plants to a Paduan dry summer, though books often say they need a damp soil. "},{"start":310.609,"text":"Plainly they do not. "},{"start":312.002,"text":"One is a tree and the other is a good herbaceous plant, flowering now. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":316.33,"text":"Old tall trees are a distinction of the botanical garden, as in Florence and Pisa. "},{"start":321.147,"text":"A ginkgo tree goes back to 1750, before Goethe’s visit, and is a true hermaphrodite, as its male trunk has been grafted with a female branch. "},{"start":329.402,"text":"A superb Magnolia grandiflora was planted in 1786 and is even bigger than a fine one in the cloisters of Padua’s famous cathedral. "},{"start":337.157,"text":"A tulip tree towers to the sky, but what impresses me is a big Swamp cypress, which is doing likewise. "}],[{"start":343.63,"text":"Swamp cypress, or taxodium, is often found in wet ground, but it does not insist on it. "},{"start":349.534,"text":"Botanical gardens have big specimens in dry places and hot climates, from New York to Padua. "},{"start":354.927,"text":"In gardens and fields we should be more bold and use it away from water. "},{"start":358.632,"text":"We should also be bolder about the spotted little toad lily or tricyrtis. "},{"start":362.499,"text":"The official advice is always to plant this October-flowering plant in shade in damp soil. "},{"start":367.404,"text":"Why though is Tricyrtis formosana flowering freely in Padua, 2ft high and happy in a hot summer without irrigation? "},{"start":373.947,"text":"Here too I think we have been inflexible. "},{"start":376.18899999999996,"text":"Slugs, not sun, are what kills this excellent plant in Britain. "}],[{"start":380.81,"text":"Padua’s botanical garden is good to visit, but the overriding reason for visiting the city as a tourist is its Arena chapel, frescoed by Giotto, the maestro, from 1303-1305. "},{"start":391.964,"text":"With green thoughts in mind I visited it too and became aware of details I had never expected. "},{"start":396.794,"text":"Art and flowers have featured in this column all year, but I will save Giotto’s surprises for that appropriate season whose founding event he also painted, Christmas. "}],[{"start":405.85,"text":"Find out about our latest stories first — follow @ft_houseandhome on Instagram "}],[{"start":410.88,"text":""}]],"url":"https://creatives.ftmailbox.cn/album/177488-1729995850.mp3"}