Map of production of the Iris in comparation with the UNESCO zones

Dear all,

as a lot of you know, Piedmont, or better the Province of Cuneo, or closer the zone of Low Langhe, Roero and Monferrato entered in 2014 in the UNESCO Heritage, as firts compound of cultivated land, because of the absolute beauty of the landscapes, something that no other rural part of Italy or France achieved, thus even better than the well movie-known Tuscany.

I would like to point out in the following map the UNESCO zones (in blue) in comparation with our production of iris. As you can see we are in the very zone of UNESCO where the wines have the top taste on the world (like Barbaresco, Barolo or Roero) and so we hope also our iris.

Varieties of Iris 2018

Some pictures about the different colours of the blossoming iris during this very rainy May 2018

Iris Pallida: blossoming May 2018

Finally the iris pallida, after the long-rainy period started to blossom; the scent in the air was amazing and the colours too.

We are happy to see that all the roots we planted last year grew and are unbelievably high.

(bottom: on the left you can also see the fading iris germanica)

Bottom: a still to be "Black Suited" iris: petals like silk!

Still fields of iris pallida in May

Rosa Damascena

As said, I planted also some Roses Damascenae in the variety Kazanlik and Ispahan. With them I am going to prepare a barrier all around the fields in order to create also a protection against wild animals and a very impressive visual impact (and maybe one day also essential oil)

As always to keep it clean I used my foil to cover the land and the results are quite impressive. This Rosa Damascena (this is a Ispahan) grew very fast - it was planted in December 2017) and it's going to blossom in the next days. (actually the month of May is considered to be the month of the roses but this year it is raining all the time and blossoming is delayed).

De Historia Stirpum - Leonhard Fuchs A.D. 1542

I always liked nature and books. So the good combination between this two passions is becoming my personal collection of herbals of the past.
As you can understand, it would be almost impossible to buy the original ones (and sincerly for me over my possibilities) and therefore I opted for the facsimle versions of herbals.

I don't want here to write any history of the evolution of the herbals, but simply point out the single volumes I am going to put together in order to build my personal herbal library.

This is the Aboca facsimile "De Historia Stirpium Commentarii Insignes" published in Basilea in 1542. It is a real huge volume with a lot of picture and description of herbs and plants.

I chose between those - obviously - the Iris in the Latin text