Productive Gardens
The Alcinoo garden, described by Homer, is one of the most significant archetypes of gardens, from which beauty, usefulness (fruits and vegetables production) and eternal spring were in harmony. These aims are often portrayed in traditional Mediterranean gardens, they are still nowadays of a cogent newness.
The Homer description of Alcinoo palace’s garden, a space surrounded by pear trees, pomegranates, apple trees, very sweet figs and luxuriant olive trees. On one hand the charm of the garden was made by the presence of utilitarian plants, fruit trees above all but also vegetables, and to the fact that the production would never be interrupted “Pears age on pear, Apples on apples, bunces on bunces, figs on figs”. European travelers, arriving on the occasion of the grand Mediterranean countries tour, would find on the fertile countryside and on the production plants even in winter (citrus above all) the immanent image of such a garden.
The theme of the productive garden, useful, is still widely present: a green space, producing fruits, flowers, biodiversity, smells, emotions, oxygen, relaxation, fun, regenerating energy is an archetype that never fails. For this reason, the theme announced for the Garden Festival 2019 edition is the productive garden one, which knows how to conciliate for the third millennium human being, in an original way, the ancestral needs for usefulness along with the new aesthetic demands of modern society.
