A Very Special Garden - Photographic visit in an Italian garden on ...

A few days ago I visited the "Astego Garden".

The Garden is located at 450 meters above sea level on the southern slopes of Monte Grappa and it originates from a previous forest nursery structured on a series of shelves contained by dry stone walls.
Its structure proposes, in a simplified key, the succession of natural environments that can be recognized descending from a peak of the Venetian pre-Alps to the plains such as the rock garden, the fresh scree, the consolidated scree, the high altitude grassland, the beech forest typical mountain, the llama, the beech wood, mountain pasture, the submontane beech forest, the chestnut grove, the olive grove, the thermophile oak grove, the plain wood and the crops.

Educational visits are made along the nature trails, tree recognition workshops and environmental education activities.
The children learn to recognize the trees in the mountains by observing the most important features such as bark and wood while environmental education activities focus on the life and structure of trees considering the diversification of their appearance in the succession of the seasons.

The first thing that surprised me is the straight path that you are facing when you enter the garden area.

It is very long and downhill and it is hard to see the end.

The garden is divided into terracing.
Each terracing is specific to plants divided by species and altitude.

There are educational and informative signs that illustrate the type of plant, the habitat etc...

When I visited the garden there were only 3 other people, but the caretakers told me that during the week there are many schools that take children to visit.

Continuing I walked on an adventure path where you have to balance over the trunks and make a path through the trees.

When I do these experiences, I feel like a child! :D

There was a section with flower beds with native plants.

This is a place where it is worth returning to different times of the year to see the different blooms.

In fact, as you can see, many plants had already bloomed.

There is an artificial pond where dragonflies flew and small animals can drink.

A very nice spot in the garden was used as a natural flowering field.
Here I would like to bring a model to do some portraits.

Over a dry stone wall near the flowery field I noticed a lizard sunbathing in the sun :)

The more I went down in altitude and there were fewer trees... I was in the garden sector that reproduces the hilly environment.

From the sign you realize that there are so many things to see!

Here is another perspective of the garden seen from the other side of the entrance.
The hedge with pruning that creates holes like windows is particularly pleasant.

Here I am trying to use the remote shutter of Lumix... unfortunately I noticed that it works within 3 meters away from the camera, too bad!

There is this giant linden that is a real room... a picture does not make the idea... you enter inside and it's like being in a big green environment... the peace room.