Parco Giardino Sigurtà, Valeggio sul Mincio (Italy)


European Garden Award 2015

 

600,000 square meters of lawns and woods, a million Tulips and 30.000 roses , 18 ponds and lakes, the Maze and a 400 year-old oak: these are just a few of the treasures of Sigurtà Garden Park, an oasis close to Lake Garda.

Parco Giardino Sigurtà represents the beautiful fusion of a historical park and a modern garden.

The Sigurtà Garden Park was originally a “walled wooded hill”, with buildings that housed the aristocratic family and its servants, as well as with areas mainly used for livestock breeding and agriculture.

That was up to April 1941 when Doctor Carlo Sigurtà, Milanese pharmaceuticals entrepreneur, bought the property. Over the years, he and his son Enzo, by exploiting the century old right to draw water from the Mincio River, succeeded in transforming the arid hillside into a lush green garden.

The gardens were first opened to the public on a sunny Sunday in March of 1978 and quickly became a favourite place to visit both for famed botanists and lovers of nature in general.

Highlights are a million tulips that – together with Muscari, Hyacinths and Narcissus – burst naturally into flower as well as in elegant flower beds throughout the park. From May onwards 30.000 roses bring colour to the Avenue of the Roses. The Great Lawn is the most extensive feature with flowering lakes with their many varieties of water plants, Metasequoias and the romantic weeping willow in the centre.

Today the Sigurtà family continues with a passion and commitment and with this same intent to welcome everyone to this particular Eden: it is a modus operandi that has brought the family great satisfaction as well as recognition. And to be a finalist today adds to this well-deserved recognition.

Link to Parco Giardino Sigurtà website