First Italian Garden Participates in World Topiary Day 2023

World Topiary Day 2023, the global celebration founded by Levens Hall and Gardens, which  helps spread the love of topiary across both the globe and the world of gardening, will see the first-ever Italian garden taking part in the celebration this year.

Organisers reached out to gardens worldwide, to try to include as many guardians of topiary as possible in the May 14 celebration, and were delighted to discover great enthusiasm and passion for the idea from the Monumental Garden of Valsanzibio.

The stunning Italian gardens, known as The Small Versailles, are located 17km from Padua and 53km from Venice and were founded around 1665.  They are home to the highest concentration of boxwood plants in the world, with 60 per cent of these being around 400 years’ old.  Boxwood at Valsanzibio forms walls over 5 metres in height and over 6000 Boxwood plants come together in the garden’s labyrinth.  Boxwood borders also create boulevards or alleys that represent those to be found within the Calle Veneziana, Venice.

Levens Hall and Gardens has its own claim to fame, being the Guinness World Record Holder for the oldest topiary garden in the world.  Its status, as almost the spiritual grandfather of topiary gardens, was the reason for founding World Topiary Day, to ensure that collaborative action can spread the joy of topiary amongst a new generation of garden lovers. 

It too has a massive hedge, formed of Beech, which helps partition and divide the garden, providing it with structure and symmetry.  It also acts as the dramatic backdrop to the Beech Circle.

Bringing Valsanzibio into the World Topiary Day celebration is particularly exciting, as topiary’s roots can be found in Roman times.  The very first topiary was introduced to garden’s in Julius Caesar’s time and Pliny the Younger, a magistrate of Ancient Rome, introduced many clipped forms to the gardens at his Tuscan villa.  When other Romans adopted this clipped-tree artform, it came to be known as topiarius.

At Valsanzibio, this historical background was no doubt a huge influence on the gardens, whereas Levens Hall’s inspiration came from French gardens, such as Versailles, and the work carried out at Hampton Court, by the Levens’ garden founder, Monsieur Guillaume Beaumont.

Valsanzibio was founded by a Venetian noble, Giovani Francesco Barbarigo, when he sought to create a refuge from the Black Plague that was besetting Venice and which had already affected his family.  An inscription on what is known as the Staircase of the Sonnets reads, “In Venice there is Hell and here instead there is Paradise.” 

His sons, Antonio and Gregorio, then developed the gardens in the late 17th century, building allegorical messages and symbolism in, at every step.  The gardens are a monumental symbolic pathway to perfection, with a walk through them being a journey that brings man from falsehood to truth and from ignorance to revelation, the latter achieved on arrival at the stunning villa that is still the family home today.

Levens Hall and Gardens, on the other hand, was a home at which owner, Colonel James Grahme, could escape the attention of the Court, after the fall of James II, who he had served so loyally as Keeper of the Privy Purse and Master of the Buckhounds and who he continued to support after the King was removed during the Glorious Revolution.  Creating a haven in Cumbria, so far away from the political intrigue of London, allowed Grahme to slip off the radar somewhat, following several allegations and an imprisonment, protecting him from fates that beset other supporters of the Jacobite cause.  

Levens Hall has also remained a family home, with the latest generation of the Bagot family in residence today.  It passed down a female line, for a few centuries, which probably explains why the topiary garden was not destroyed, to make way for new fashions.  Female owners were either too attached to the romanticism of the garden, or using Levens Hall as a second home, whilst all new investment went into their husband’s main property.

Valsanzibio’s topiary maintenance is as challenging as that of Levens Hall and Gardens, requiring the same annual trim with a variety of manual and mechanical cutting tools, ladders and lifting devices.  Just as at Levens Hall, there are various themed areas of the gardens to explore, so topiary sits within a much wider context. 

Levens Hall and Gardens, head gardener, Chris Crowder, says of Valsanzibio’s participation in World Topiary Day, “It is interesting and amazing to see so many great topiary gardens spread across the world, and I would like to go and visit them all. We are delighted that the Monumental Garden of Valsanzibio will be participating in the 2023 World Topiary Day celebrations.”

On World Topiary Day, Chris will be welcoming members of the European Boxwood and Topiary Society to Levens Hall and Gardens, including the President of the French branch, Patrick Salembier.  This year, over 30 French gardens, along with counterparts in Australia, Belgium, Portugal and the USA, will again be participating in World Topiary Day, thanks to Patrick’s passion for the celebration.  French gardens will include the Palace of Versailles, Les Jardins de Marqueyssac and Eyrignac et Ses Jardins.

World Topiary Day organisers have also enlisted some gorgeous English and Welsh gardens as 2023 participants, including Mount Ephraim (Faversham, Kent), Scampston Hall (Malton, North Yorkshire), Elton Hall (Peterborough), The Manor/Green Knowe (Hemingford Grey, Cambridgeshire), Dorney Court (Windsor, Berkshire), Hinton Ampner (Alresford, Hampshire) and Plas Cadnant (Isle of Anglesey, Wales).

For more information about World Topiary Day, visit www.levenshall.co.uk  More information about the Monumental Garden of Valsanzibio can be found at https://www.valsanzibiogiardino.com

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Editors notes

Levens Hall & Gardens is a historic house in the South Lakes, Cumbria, close to Kendal and home to the world's oldest topiary gardens, dating from 1694, created by French garden designer, Guillaume Beaumont. The Hall is a stunning Elizabethan house built around a 13th century pele tower and has close links to the Duke of Wellington, as well as various items which once belonged to him and Napoleon Bonaparte. Levens Park is home to the rare Bagot goats gifted to the Bagot family and a place in which to stroll and enjoy nature. Levens Kitchen is the contemporary new cafe, full of delights for cake lovers and foodies alike.