Urban oasis

Facing page Foliage from a neighbouring olive tree adds to the jumble of plants, including Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Zorro’, Amsonia tabernaemontana, Cyrtomium falcatum and Nandina domestica, that fills this tiny space. Including so much planting may seem counter-intuitive, but Roberto takes inspiration from an Italian poem, L’infinito by Giacomo Leopardi, in which the poet can’t see what lies beyond a hedge, meaning the horizon of his imagination is broadened.

Imagine a contemporary garden located in the centre of Milan, and you would most likely picture something formal and clipped. Surprisingly, Milanese garden designer Roberto Benatti, who cites the English father of the naturalistic, wild garden, William Robinson, as the “light on his gardening journey”, created quite the opposite for his clients who wanted their tiny, city garden to be transformed into a tranquil oasis.

Milan has a somewhat varied climate, with hot and humid summers, followed by cold, foggy and wet winters. On his first site visit, Roberto discovered that the rear garden was surrounded on all sides by tall buildings, and although southeast facing, catches only a little morning sun. By midday, it is firmly in the shade. There were two Phyllostachys aurea hedges, a 12m-high rear wall dominating the view and an unsightly air conditioning unit sat in the corner. The smaller front garden faces northwest but has an open aspect and more sun.

Despite these setbacks, Roberto searched for the positives. He ‘borrowed’ the foliage from an Olea europaea that was dangling over the rear boundary wall, while in the front garden he set about untangling a very mature Trachelospermum jasminoides, training it up the building, encouraging it skyward and combining it with a Plumbago capensis, to enhance the colour interest.

Small gardens such as this, offering little privacy and limited external views, are common in Milan, so Roberto’s approach was to create an element of mystery, stretching the imagination by using tall plants that obscured parts of the garden.

To hide the unsightly air-conditioning unit, Roberto has re-purposed an old Corten-steel door, which creates a focal point and adds an air of mystery to the garden, hinting at a hidden space beyond the boundaries. He also set a stepping stone path on the diagonal to emphasise the longest axis, making the garden appear wider than it really is.

Roberto’s background is in forestry and agriculture, and so his first consideration is