The garden located in the Mediterranean area, which is characterized by dry, hot summers, mild winter and salty wind, needs a management and maintenance compatible with this particular environment, in harmony with the climate and, above all, sensitive to natural resources of water.
The classic green lawn, a very valuable compositional element of the garden because of its simplicity and uniformity, in the Mediterranean climate conditions often proves to be very demanding and difficult to manage. It needs much maintenance: frequent and regular cuts, lots of water, fertilizers and pesticides.
The landscape designer Vlatka Colić of Officina29 Architetti studio offers an alternative: dry garden. It is a garden consisting of plants resistant to drought, high temperatures and salty air. The surface of dry garden can be covered with inert material (gravel, pebbles, sand), which helps to preserve moisture and prevents weed growth. The level of maintenance is low: irrigation is needed only the first year after planting and once developed the roots system, the plants grow well with natural water resources, the rain. The plants in the dry garden need pruning about once a year, to maintain shape or rejuvenate the older shrubs.
The composition of plant species, planting design, is very varied, starting from the ground cover plants with creeping habit, the prostrate shrubs, to compact and higher shapes, aromatic plants and ornamental grasses. The common feature of these plants is drought resistance. The color of the foliage is often gray or silverish, the surface of the leaf is covered by a dense layer of hairs and the root system is very well developed. Those are some of the adjustments developed in this type of plants, which protect them from water loss in an arid environment.
The dry gardens, are dynamic, low maintenance, evergreen, ecologically sustainable and, with its many types of planting design, surprisingly beautiful.
Realized project in Sardinia, by Officina29 Architetti in coollaboration with the landscape designer Vlatka Colić