Dialogues in the garden
The calendar includes meetings dedicated to the theme of the year, to the Italian landscape, with personalities such as Oliva di Collobiano, Giuseppe Barbera and Guido Taroni, the role of botanical societies in the diffusion of hybrids, like the American peonies of Irene Tolomeo, the intelligence and evolution of carnivorous plants with Andrea Amici, the hundred years of research of the State University of Milan told through the wax fruits of Francesco Garnier Vallettithe hybridization of new roses such as the ‘Perugino’ obtained this year to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the great painter’s death.
The traditional installation inside the Baroque fountain is back this year in front of Palazzo Dugnani, the heart of the Exhibition. It is an Ikebana floral installation, respecting the wabi-sabi aesthetic, by the Ikebana Chapter Ohara of the Garden Club Milano. A concept that highlights the value of rusticity and naturalness through elegant simplicity. Rafts of bamboo, a definitely clever plant, sail on the water and carry flower arrangements, while flanking the fountain bamboo poles in the shape of yukitsuri, the shelters used in Japan to protect flowers, contain ikebana compositions.
A photographic exhibition dedicated to some of the most important gardens in Palermoof great artistic and botanical value, both private and public, as part of the twinning between Orticola di Lombardia and the historic Botanical Garden of the University of Palermo with the aim of promoting the knowledge of places less known to the Lombard and Sicilian public and further stimulating the ever growing botanical tourism in a North-South dialogue that can only increase the love for the Italian heritage. The Botanical Garden of Palermo organizes the La Zagara exhibition twice a year which, in the autumn edition in October 2022, presented some Lombard gardens.
iO Woman at Orticola 2023
Always considered a “plus” of the exhibition-market, at Orticola 2023 more than 50 free moments dedicated to the public, including meetings, presentation of books and gardens, decoration and painting workshops, guided tours of the exhibition-market and the Public Gardens , technical courses on plants and to learn the art of gardening; some with an eye to Japan, such as the “Campanelle di Vento” curated by Nais for iO Donnathe Ikebana DYI for children by KikolleLab and the illustration course featuring bamboo by Chiara Trinchieri.
This year’s super guests
The international cultural exchanges with the presence of Japan which has granted its patronage to the 2023 edition.
The roundup of international experts continues this year with the presence, as “Guest Member”, of the Botanical Jury, of mr_plantgeekaka Michael PerryUK influencer of the year, TV presenter, traveller, “horticultural entrepreneur”.
Another new and very welcome presence within the Botanical Jury, in addition to the historic jurors, Francesca Marzotto Caotorta, Guido and Felice Piacenza, Gianfranco Giustina (Veitch Memorial Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society in 2014), Alessandro Corbellini and Vincenzo Borsi Franchi, is Ursula Salghetti Drioli, curator of the Boccanegra Garden in Ventimiglia and Italian Vice President of the Friends of the Hanbury Botanical Gardens Association, she is the only Italian woman to have received the Veitch Memorial Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society so far in 2019.
Horticulture for Milan
A part of the proceeds continues to remain inside the Indro Montanelli Public Gardens, again for 2023, for the care of the Fawn Flowerbed in front of the Civic Museum of Natural History in collaboration with Agiamo. The care of “L’Altra Pergola. Homage to Leonardo”, the life-size mulberry pergola in the Cortile delle Armi of the Castello Sforzesco and the maintenance of the Garden of the Royal Palace, the oasis of tranquility in the middle of the city, enriched this year by the group of the Floribunda rose ‘Marie Curie’, planted on February 14th, on the occasion of the visit to Milan of the French physicist Hélène Langevin-Joliot, nephew of Pierre and Marie Curie, who held a lecture in the conference room of Palazzo Reale.