What is your favourite kind of garden?

[Albion]

In late winter and early spring I love to see snowdrops and daffodils. Daffodils are especially nice as they contrast so well against the dark skies here at that time of year.
The daffs are dying off now for this year, a few are still out in my garden though.


Cornwall

Common Heather is also a nice plant. It is bright pink in spring and summer and then goes brown in winter. It really defines the moorlands in this part of the world.



And Rowan (Mountain Ash) are another hill and moorland species that looks great, especially against the snow in winter.

[Albion]

So what I have to say is: If I´d live in a very temperate region I´d prefer to have a more "Northern garden", too. I like a garden to fit in the surrounding landscape.

Yeah, I think the same way. I really can't stress how much I hate it when people go putting tropical plants in gardens up here in the English Midlands. They're just so out of place and look ugly in the landscape.

I like native species or temperate European species rather than plants from completely different biomes.

Hornbeam are nice when they've got this sort of shape, they're characteristic of England south of Birmingham and are planted further north.
A lot of species have their Northern or Southern limits in England so some plants are found naturally only in the north or south.

[Albion]

For landscape trees, Laburnum are very beautiful to look at too. They're native to the Alps and SE Europe, they have good years and bad years here.
There's some near me, last year they suffered through a very dry spell and then a very wet phase followed by more dry weather. The flowers got a bit ruined at the end.
When I was a kid I used to climb in those trees. They're in the Fabacea family so closer related to peas but all parts of the tree are very poisonous.
Most flowering trees that occur here naturally are part of the rose family.

[Albion]

Large English landscape gardens often depend greatly on the effect of different trees in the landscape.
Whilst some trees don't really work in a formal setting it is still interesting to note how different species fit into certain landscapes.


Hawthorn, a tree characteristic of windswept hills in Britain and often growing alone. It's also used for hedges.








Just look how the wind has distorted the shape of the tree.

[Albion]

Here are some more nice trees on limestone pavements in the Pennines (Yorkshire Dales). It's quite an incredible landscape and the lone trees look great there.

[PetiteParisienne]

Here are some more nice trees on limestone pavements in the Pennines (Yorkshire Dales). It's quite an incredible landscape and the lone trees look great there.

They are so haunting and beautiful.

[Foxy]

But a mix of temperate trees and some mediterranean plants does fit into our submediterranean influenced landscape
Palms

Gaffe: palms aren't from Southern Europe but from Northern Africa!!

True mediterranean landscapes never lack: pines, cipressus and junipers.
A true mediterranean maquis is very beautiful, the most beautiful I have seen were in Sardinia.

Pine



Juniper (found in the maquis but also on mountains)



Mediterranean forest



Mediterranean maquis has a lot of shrubs: juniper, rosemary, mulberry, chilli peppers shrubs, roses etc.

[Albion]

Gaffe: palms aren't from Southern Europe but from Northern Africa!!

There's one I know of but they do seem to be more of an North African / Middle Eastern thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamaerops

True mediterranean landscapes never lack: pines, cipressus and junipers.
A true mediterranean maquis is very beautiful, the most beautiful I have seen were in Sardinia.

Mediterranean maquis has a lot of shrubs: juniper, rosemary, mulberry, chilli peppers shrubs, roses etc.

Here we have heathlands and some people compare them to maquis. Heathlands are where our few reptiles thrive and a few birds such as the Dartford Warbler which aren't common.
Sardinian and Scots Pines are common around heaths (Sardinian Pines being introduced) but birch are very common.

Junipers are restricted to heaths and a few moors, roses are found in hedges and those others are only ever planted in gardens, never wild.
They're usually dominated by gorse and heathers too. Heathlands and Moorlands are our only landscapes which are shaped by fire. None of our trees burn easily but many heathland and moorland plants thrive on it and so controlled fires are often carried out in grouse shooting moors.

This is a bit like a heathland but not the best example, it's getting towards a moorland:


Birches, Pines and Bilberies - Bilberies are like a wild, small Blueberry.




Gorse - probably the commonest Heathland plant



I've never seen a maquis so I don't know if people are right to compare the two. Do they look similar to heathlands in your opinion?

[Foxy]

The mediterranean vegetation is formed of various levels:
1. maquis (between the beach and the inland)
2. pinewoods (at the shoulders of the maquis)
3. cultivated hills

Mediterranean maquis is a strip of vegetation that in mediterranean temperate areas grow between the sea and the inland. It is made mostly of shrubs and small dunes.

The autentic maquis looks like this.





I have found something similar to the mediterranean maquis in Australia, in the NSW, although the vegetation was exotic, but with a very similar shape.

The maquis is made only of shrubs. At the shoulders of the maquis you find the pinewoods.



And then the hills.



This are approximately the mediterranean landscapes. Consider that in Italy you find also the alpine and the appenninic landscapes/environment that are not mediterranean.

In the case of my region, after the pinewood (we don't have the maquis here or it is very limited) and the hills, you have the Appenninic woods made mostly of beech trees:



To go from the pinewood to the beech trees woods I need less than 40 minutes in my region. This is to give you an idea of the great variety of landscapes that you find in Italy.

To answer you, I think the photos you posted don't really look like a mediterranean maquis, but do have something mediterranean. I would say that you see something similar in the hilly strip, in some Italian countryside.

[Lena]

My fav is English cottage garden 'cause of the mixture of perennials and herbs. I love lavender....