8 November 2005
Rome
Is autumn always like this? Not so much mists and mellow fruitfulness as downpours interspersed with sudden bursts of faux-summer. Yes, is probably the answer. More than any other season, autumn with its erratic climate always comes as a surprise. Why is this?
Looking at it rationally, we should probably think of ourselves as blessed. Yes, admittedly, the damp, drear, miserable summer was not anyoneÕs idea of Italy at its best, but what did it give us? The late-summer, early-autumn rush of blooming and growing was not a parched, last-ditch-effort affair with its usual air of desperation before winter sets in: quite the contrary, it was lusher, and more flower-filled, than spring. Yesterday, our photographer friend Oliviero was waxing lyrical about the gardens that he snapped for my article for Conde Nast Traveller (see 2 June 2005). He was meant to take his pictures more or less at the same time as I was writing; he put it off repeatedly, however, my heart sinking as I watched flowers disappear and nature all around take on that tired summer look. When he said he was going in mid-September, it seemed a crime. Who would have imagined that the wisteria walk at La Foce would have been in full bloom then? But it wasÉ marvellous cascades of the stuff, Oliviero says. And huge quantities of late, blowsy roses everywhere.
If the November 1 holiday weekend was a spectacular example of those bursts of residual summer, this past weekend was a washout. Mists, yes, a-plenty. So much so that I had to cancel an appointment to see a prospective clientÕs garden near CdPÉ the world outside his windows had simply disappeared. For two days, it dripped or clattered, depending on the force of the rain. My daffodil bulbs remained unplanted. My systematic weeding and salvaging of tiny patches of garden planted long long ago and then abandonedÉ had to be abandoned. (The previous weekend, some vegetable archeology along the northern boundary of our land revealed, to my delight, that the 40 tiny hawthorn plants I had stuck in the ground about a year ago Ð my so-called hedge Ð had not been killed off by last winterÕs freeze and this summerÕs lack of water/total subjugation by surrounding weeds: some were bent horizontal beneath their competitors; some were showing only the faintest signs of life; but only two had no leaves on them at all and even they still seemed to have fairly determined roots. The only really negative result of their maltreatment seems to be that none of them have grown at all.) What rain is good for, however, is painting, and the untiled bits of our bathroom are now gloriously white.
There was more mist on Monday morning when I dragged Oliviero Ð such an urban soul Ð to yet another garden. We turned up at the monksÕ vegetable garden at the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme at 9am, hoping to catch the morning dew steaming off cabbage leaves, will-oÕ-the-wisps of mist clinging to persimmon trees. What we got was the uniform, flattening grey of high fog, with a sun gleaming tantalisingly behind its veil from time to time then withdrawing, infuriatingly. It was clear that the sun would emergeÉ it was just a matter of time.
So we waited, and waited. And watched the activity in this very special place. In the heart of Rome, a circular garden built inside the walls of the other amphitheatre, the Anfiteatro Castrense; the garden has always been thereÉ from the middle ages, perhaps, and has always fed the monks of the monastery. Paolo Pejrone got his hands on it a couple of years ago, when it consisted of some straggly trees and a small vegetable patch surrounded by an agglomeration of huts and sheds and shells of old tools and vehicles and little bits of sheet-metal-covered archeological remains. He made patches of vegetable and herb inside a series of concentric circles around a circular pool. He planted more fruit trees and mixed common or garden flowers Ð bergenia and Zantedeschia aethiopica, agapanthus and little Erigeron daisies wherever groundcover was needed Ð among the crops. Paths are edged with tiny strawberries. An ever-so-simple pergola of chestnut uprights and bamboo crosspoles carries R. Alberic Barbier, R. New Dawn and R. Alistair Stella Gray (and vines, though not so successfullyÉ many seemed dead). There are sage bushes of all colours, and peppers of all shapes. Alternating patches of broccoli and fennel leaves make a gorgeously textured checker board.
But what makes the garden extra special is its usefulness. Its ordinariness. ItÕs full of monks. Some are wandering up and down the pathways, clad in the black and cream Cistercian habit and telling their rosary beads. But theyÕre the minority. The others are working. TheyÕre wearing yellow wellies and filthy jeans and harvesting lettuce or climbing ladders to remove rotting citrus fruit from the tops of trees. TheyÕre preparing beds for the next crop, flinging tiny bits of fallen-off Roman wall out onto the paths to be swept up and thrown out. (Anything bigger that they unearth becomes edging for beds, if itÕs the right shape, or simply sits about at the edge of the path, looking ancient.) ThereÕs nothing pretty-pretty about this garden. It is as it was. In other contexts, PejroneÕs designs can even be cloyingly sweet and old-fashioned. Here, he has produced something very special, because only someone with his grasp of simplicity would think of designing a garden which is so in tune with the simple, seasonal rule by which these monks have always lived. Ora et labora. Pray and work. IÕm not completely unrealistic; IÕm not letting the timelessness of the garden addle me. I know these monks have cellphones and Filofaxes and agendas as long your arm. But here in their garden they donÕt. Here in their garden they are simply gardeners and who knows, maybe the restoration of their vegetable patch restored their rapport with the fundamentals of monastic life too. Standing there in that haven, waiting for the sun to come out (and it did), it was nice to think so.