The Villa Carlotta botanical garden is one of the most beautiful in Italy, with a variety of flowers and plants from all over the world.
When Marquis Giorgio Clerici had the villa built in 1690, the size of the park was much smaller than it is today. At the time, there was only the area which is still kept as an Italian garden, with manicured flower beds, hedges, fountains, water features and statues. Imagine that this area, organized in terraces bordered by elegant stone parapets and stairways, used to be planted with an incredible variety of citrus fruits, now confined to a single terrace, where they form two romantic tunnels that blossom from spring to summer and produce wonderful fruit until winter. This area of the garden is also home to prized climbing roses and beautiful camellias.
When the property passed to Gian Battista Sommariva in 1801, new land was purchased to create an English-style park. But it is thanks to the Prince of Saxony-Meiningen, who owned the villa from the second half of the 19th century, that the garden reached its present size and shape. So today, around the Italian garden, you can admire the romantic garden with monumental plants, a beautiful forest of rhododendrons, hydrangeas, English roses and azaleas.
You should know that Princess Charlotte of Prussia and Prince George II of Saxony were very much in love, but fate separated them after only five years of marriage when, in March 1855, a few months after her second-born son died, poor Charlotte died in childbirth at only 23 years of age. The prince decided to keep the villa and devoted himself for years to the care of his park, which, being the botanical expert he was, he transformed into the marvel that millions of tourists can admire today.
He had the rock garden created, where succulent plants such as cacti, agaves and aloes are placed in spring and summer. He wanted a small artificial grotto, which in summer is home to tropical plants and magnificent orchids. Above all, he created the picturesque fern valley, with a stream at its center, and had monumental trees such as cedars, pines and sequoias planted.
Here's an interesting fact: Villa Carlotta's citrus fruits are planted directly in the ground and, to preserve them in cold winters, they are covered with a cloth inside which special heaters maintain a temperature that never falls below 6° centigrade.
