Adam's Garden

I am writing this sitting at a picnic table outside the Knights Templar castle, gazing down over olive groves and scrub on to the picturesque town of Tomar in the beautiful Estrama Duran hills to the North of Lisbon, in Portugal. It is my annual holiday, and having hired a car in Cascais, west of Lisbon, I am heading north towards the ultimate destination of the Minho at the tip of Portugal.

The country is a gardener's paradise, even this late in the year. The landscape changes quite dramatically from plains and valley floor into craggy hills covered in scrub. This is the land of olives, citrus groves, vast cork oak plantations (grown on latifundiae - traditional large farms worked by waged labourers with no interest in the land until collectivisation took place during the revolution, something that is now being slowly reversed as former owners buy back the land), towering eucalyptus, scrambling bougainvillea and so many other plants associated with southern european and mediterranean countries.

Negotiating the winding roads, the traveller spots agaves with giant flower spikes rising above dying leaves. There is also a variety of succulents and cacti, but how many of these are indigenous I do not know. Some plants I am surprised to see growing in great abundance. Weeping willows are visible everywhere but do not seem to grow as large as in more northerly countries. I have even seen some rather sickly looking fuschias obviously finding the climate too hot even though they have been planted in the shade.

There are many gardens to visit in the area. The botanical gardens in Lisbon are crowded into the centre of the city, surrounded by high buildings, making it very difficult to find the entrance. The city, situated as it is on a geological fault-line, is extremely hilly and the botanical garden drops sharply by several hundred feet. Small trees and shrubby plants occupy a small flat area at the top and one walks downwill to pass a dramatic collection of enormous palm trees and assorted planting: a pohutakawa and even a mature black walnut. This latter tree announced itself by shedding a fruit directly at my feet from a great height, just missing my nose. The garden is fully mature, with the large trees creating deep shade on the ground - perfect, I would imagine, for the stifling heat of midsummer.

For me, however,. the nicest garden in Lisbon was in the Eduardo VII Park in the north of the city. The park is mostly covered in a rather unadventurous stretch of hedging with serried ranks of cannas between two large walkways, hundreds of yards long. Situated in one corner of the park, however, are the estufas, large greenhouses and semi -covered houses crammed with plants from around the world. There are pools and water features, and the layout carries the visitor up steep winding pathways through every kind of sub-tropical and tropical species imaginable. One cactus house appears to put the emphasis on size. Because the estufas have been there for some time I would guess that as the cacti grew they were thinned out until most had gone, leaving the largest behind. One irritating feature here was the number of succulents, particularly agaves, into which people had carved their names, something that seems to be a national pastime in Portuguese gardens.

Container planting is popular in the streets. An avenue in a pedestrianised area in one town was constructed entirely of potted citrus trees, all nice healthy plants. Simple potted specimen shrubs are common, even the occasional variegated holly.

Simple planting is a feature used to good effect in the several cloister gardens I have seen. There are gigantic and impressive monastries in Portugal, each with at least one cloister. Some are paved, perhaps with a simple fountain, but most have some kind of greenery. The main cloister garden at Batalha contains a four-sectioned grassed courtyard with 8 lemon trees, an oasis of green in the midst of the ornate but forbidding stone monastery. One could almost see the ancient monks meditating as a breath of wind rustled the citrus leaves. Other cloister gardens have plain box hedges around specimen citrus trees.

As I sit at my old picnic table, drinking the local red wine and surveying the olives ready for cropping and the citrus trees with their shiny green leaves and plump fruits, I think to myself "Do I really have to leave this warm and pleasant land when the holiday ends, or could I just stay and take my chances with a life amongst the friendly locals?" Sadly holidays are just that, and anyhow, who would look after my garden?

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