L ast spring, my wife and I embarked on an extended family holiday through Spain, taking our two young children on a month-long road trip around a country we didn’t know well but quickly came to love, for its ancient walled cities and diverse landscapes, its full-bodied wine and its warm-hearted people. As a gardener, however, the other great incentive was to tick off some of Spain’s signature gardens – the grand Moorish courtyards of the south and the drought-tolerant Mediterranean plantings of the country’s rugged interior and coast. These unique horticultural attractions did not disappoint.
The Alhambra and Alcázar palaces of Granada and Seville dazzled with their stately palm avenues and brugmansia-draped, water-rilled squares, while terraced gardens in Málaga and Ávila, stocked with native shrubs and wildflowers, positively glowed with contemporary naturalism. The jewel of the entire trip, however, was a stumbled-upon garden at the edge of Salamanca’s old town. The Huerto de Calixto y Melibea, perched high on Salamanca’s Roman walls, is a rare oasis in the labyrinth of this ancient European city.
A mere half-acre in size, this enchanting, semi-concealed garden was intended to be just that – a captivating, spirited sanctuary known to locals but otherwise revealed only to the curious. A little haven behind the tourism thoroughfare. Designed in 1981, in a consciously “romantic” style, it was inspired by the Spanish tragicomic novel La Celestina, whic.
