Patrizio Fradiani has done it again. If you’ve followed this site for any amount of time, you’re probably already familiar with his genius (Podere Palazzo, Domus Civita, and Casa dos Chicos). Just finished, this three-bedroom, 17th-century noble apartment in the small Umbrian town Monteleone d’Orvieto is as much as a personal journey through his ancestral past as it is a painstaking historic renovation of faded frescos, tiled floors and crumbling old stone walls.

Patrizio bought the apartment a year ago, when he visited the town to reconnect with his great-great-grandfather’s legacy as a poet; there’s a plaque in the town square to honor him. After a massive, beyond-expectation undertaking– including restoring the original tarazzo floors and ornate frescoes painted in the 1800s of flowers, landscapes, angels and mythological creatures–Patrizio, who’s as romantic as his poet great-great-grandfather, is ready to share the story of his lineage in the language he knows best: architecture and design. My favorite discovery are the sketches he found under layers of wall coverings that some of the long-ago builders left behind, knowing they’d eventually be covered with fancy wallpaper or frescos — everything from schematic, layout details of to-be-constructed columns to a funny little sketch of the owner in a helmet riding an ostrich. He decided to leave them exposed in the living room so the history could be appreciated, the hand of those who came before him. “That’s what happens with these projects. It starts as something selfish — I fall in love with a building. Then I become part of the community and it becomes more about that —  a sense of belonging to a place that stands still in time. Everyone here is so excited about this renovation. It’s almost like I’ve helped restore the glory of Monteleone, or at least remind them of the potential. There are so many people in this little town who have been here for generations, and this project is about them now.”

Monteleone is surrounded by magical, lush Umbrian country landscapes, and Patrizio envisions Mazinni 31 as a retreat. Slow in pace and sublimely quiet. Suspended over the side of the cliff, the balcony unfolds across a gigantic valley into miles and miles of dramatic landscape, “almost all the way to Pienza… like sitting in the clouds and watching the atmospheric conditions play across the sky.” Yet in quintessential Patrizio style, the touches are modern and quirky. Every Patrizio project has handmade details, artwork he has created himself, and a pool as wow-factor. Set inside the former stables, this one does not disappoint. Not surprisingly, most of his vacation homes book quickly, but Mazzini 31 is brand-new, so there’s still availability this summer.

[All photos by Bob Coscarelli]

Remember a couple years ago when I wrote about architect Sabrina Bignami’s gorgeous frescoed Tuscan apartment, where she hosts guests in one of the extra bedrooms? Since then, we’ve stayed in touch a bit; call it a mutual affinity for beautiful, creative spaces. I was drawn to her  strong preservation ethos, juxtaposing original interior architectural elements with a modern design sensibility, and she became a regular reader (the highest compliment). So I was thrilled to hear that she and her partner Alessandro Capellaro decided to start renting out their renovated Box House in Florence. If it looks familiar, the former carpenter’s workshop–once a giant, open-plan mess of dust, wood and machines turned cozy loft–made rapid-fire rounds through design magazines when they finished the project a few years ago. And now, I have the privilege of introducing it to travelers.

Located five walking minutes from the historical centre on a quiet street, there are so many important details that make it a great place to stay (a big cooking kitchen, interior courtyard, and fireplace, for starters), but I’m in complete lockdown mode on the old wooden boxes everywhere, creating the most clever display of reuse I’ve ever seen. They bought more than 300 antique wooden ballot boxes used in Italian elections from the 40s-80s at a flea market, and used them to build out the space, fashioning the boxes into cabinets, tables, shelves, sofas, counters, walls, beds, you name it. “Like 300 bricks, or Lego pieces, they can be transformed and reused,” says Allessandro, who approaches architecture the same way–honoring history, repurposing space. I really love that they left all the scratches, stickers, signatures and signs of the time on the surface as a visible reminder of their history. To stay at the Box House (prices starting at $160/night for two people), email Alessandro at alessandro.capellaro@b-arch.it.

Last August, when we spent a week in Civita, I paid a visit to another property in the ancient village. Patrizio had prepped me–“I almost cried the first time I saw it.”–but sheer emotion doesn’t do this place justice. There’s a deep sense of history, grandeur, and artistic eccentricity that make it feel like a living museum, where everything is curated yet highly personal. It’s the stuff of World of Interiors, the stuff of someone’s kooky yet incredibly tasteful creative mind.

The owner of Corte della Meastra, Paolo Crepet (a former gallerist from Rome, and a well-known psychiatrist and author), has lived here for 18 years. He originally moved to Civita to spend quiet time with his then young daughter outside the bustle of Rome. Since then, he has acquired more space in the adjoining cave-like building (the entire town sits on tufa rock and Etruscan caves), and last year, he opened the extra rooms as a b&b. It was part of church at one time, and there’s a stunning 16th-century religious fresco across one wall. His art collection, which is out of this world, is displayed throughout, and where’s there’s not art, there’s ivy, stone, bright pops of color. The surrealist gardens could be a post all their own.

He imagined it as a place where brooding writers, artists, filmmakers and freethinkers can find inspiration, solitude and good conversation over bottles of wine. When I visited, there was a photographer in the kitchen, and someone in one of the living rooms playing the piano. Perhaps they can stay a few months, he suggests. Of course, common travelers are welcome, too. But as he points out, it takes a special kind of person to want to stay in small village like Civita for more than a night or two — someone who’s looking inward, looking for something more than tourist attractions. Spend an hour with Paolo, and you’ll realize he’s as much a draw as his home. A big personality, who rhapsodizes about the meaning of art, life and love like most people talk about the weather. It’s invigorating and has just the right effect: He makes you want to grab a chair and stay awhile. Maybe even a couple months.

When it comes to the types of places I try to feature on designtripper–thoughtfully designed, meaningful in experience, full of character–Patrizio Fradiani’s projects rank right up there as some of the most inspirational and influential on this site. Destinations in their own right. Homes that beckon with fruit trees and herb gardens, pools, art of his own creation and equally beautiful stories, all while reflecting the surrounding culture and landscape. Patrizio is an architect, an interior designer, a gardener and perhaps most importantly, a passionate storyteller who makes great efforts to let each brick, each fresco, each underground cave tell their own histories.

I’ve stayed at and written about Podere Palazzo, Casa dos Chicos and Domus Civita. All three involved impeccable and stunning renovations (and in one case, complete rebuilding using the existing materials), and we were lucky enough to feature a renovation series about the massive undertaking behind Civita’s exquisite cave house. And with Patrizio’s latest project already underway, readers, we’re in for another top-to-bottom, inside-out restoration adventure. Over the next year, we’ll see him bring an appartamento nobiliare in the old Italian town of Monteleone d’Orvieto back to life. Patrizio visited the town to reconnect with his great-great-grandfather’s legacy as a poet (there’s a plaque in town to honor him) and discovered this crumbling 17th-century noble apartment filled with dreamy, ornate frescos painted in the 1800s of flowers, landscapes, angels and mythological creatures. After weighing the obvious aesthetic, historical pros with concerns (will travelers go out of their way to stay in this sleepy Italian town of 800?), Patrizio, who’s as romantic as his poet great-great-grandfather, couldn’t resist sharing the story of his lineage in the language he knows best: architecture and design. “I fell in love with the feel of something once glorious and now in complete disrepair but still totally intact,” says Patrizio. “Something about that–infusing new life into it–charmed me more that anything.” For now, an exclusive peek at the apartment in its current condition.

Since my dream trip last summer to Domus Civita — Patrizio Fradiani’s ancient cave house — he’s had professional photographs taken. For those who followed along with the gutsy renovation process, finally a worthy payoff. Chicago photographer Bob Coscarelli captures the magic of the place — the quiet interior, the soft light, the soulful connection between inside and outside, and the depths and history of those miraculous caves. Accessed only by pedestrian footbridge, the town Civita de Bagnoregio is straight out of time. A picturesque mess of cobblestone streets, climbing ivy and a pace that makes the rest of Italy look downright harried, the town and the surrounding landscape (views of the Tibor river valley and clay rooftops out every flung-open window) both play an inextricable part of the experience. The garden… that gazebo, I start feeling euphoric just thinking about sitting out there. But I won’t carry on — I’ve already done enough of that here and here — but I do want to share these photographs, because they do such a beautiful job of finalizing the story.

I first heard about this series of cave hotels from my Italian friend Patrizio, who thought I would love the “diffused hotel” concept: hotel rooms spread across a small medieval hilltop village that maintain their original character (rough stone walls, uneven floors, and old-as-dirt wooden furniture). The mission is to preserve not only the landscape and original architecture of the towns they’ve settled in, but also the history and local tradition–from the craft to the cuisine of the region.

And while Sextantio’s entire concept is pretty special–using tourism to save towns that would otherwise fall into decline– it’s the bit about traditional craft I find particularly inspiring. I didn’t realize, until I spotted photos of the beautiful loom work on Remodelista, that the hotel is so fiercely dedicated to supporting local craft. For instance, linens and coverlets are handmade by ladies who have always made textiles–in a town that has produced textiles for hundreds of years. They’re made with new materials using ancient techniques, often replicated from old drawings and archival photographs. I wish we saw more of this kind of beautiful creative thinking in the hotel industry.

After our Puglia/Civita trip this summer, we made a one-night stop in Rome before boarding the plane at Fiumicino. We snagged a last-minute booking at Arco dei Tolomei in the Trastevere neighborhood–the laid-back, old Jewish quarter–and what luck! I’m pretty sure we’ll never stay anywhere else in Rome. The owner-innkeeper Marco and his wife Gianna are the most hospitable and lovely hosts. And dapper. Marco is a true Italian gentleman, who wears button-down shirts under sweaters and looks absolutely dashing at all times. After insisting on walking to our car to help with bags, Marco shows us to our rooms–two super charming, floral bedrooms at the top of the stairs–and gives us a detailed rundown of the neighborhood (where to eat with kids, what to avoid), highlighting the route on our map with a ballpoint pen and offering historical tidbits along the way. Like the history of sampietrini (the smooth black cobblestones invented by Pope Sixtus V in the 16th century), or how water from an ancient aquaduct still serves the neighborhood–and it’s the best water around! Marco is very proud of this fact, which I verified often during our August stay. We followed local custom and filled our bottles from a stone fountain nearby.

Up until about ten years ago, Marco and his wife and daughter lived a few blocks away, but as the area grew more popular, it became too noisy. So they decided to rehab Marco’s longstanding family home, which has been in his family for more than 200 years, last serving as a college for graphic design. He insists the space was a disaster, but with every parquet floorboard, dark wooden beam, and wallpapered nook and cranny carefully restored, it’s hard to imagine anything less than its  current pristine condition. There are six bedrooms in the place, some with terraces that overlook a patchwork of terracotta rooftop tiles, leafy patios and narrow, winding cobblestone streets. There’s a sitting room, decorated with comfy velvet chairs, paintings and books stacked on every available surface, but the airy, sky blue dining room, where breakfast is served every morning, is the star. It’s where Marco holds court, entertaining everyone with stories about the old neighborhood (he’s lived here all his life), politics, culture and art. As guests drifted in periodically, we sat around the long, oval dining room table, blown away by the gorgeous spread of  breads, jam, pastries, meats, cheese and yogurt. They brought my little ones chocolate milk–hoorah!–and we felt more like special guests at someone’s home than travelers at a b&b.

Inside this magical town, a magical house. It was the reason for our trip–to see this storied beauty in person. I’ve been following Patrizio Fradiani’s rehab of his Civita cave house for the last six months, but no amount of architectural explanation or in-progress photos could prepare me for what it would feel like to be here–to look out the windows, flung open to views of clay rooftops, climbing ivy and a beautiful, crooked mess of cobblestones in one direction, and the vast, golden Tibor river valley in the other.

First, there’s the obvious: Every inch of this five-story stone palazetto built into the cliffside reads like an aesthetic dream–a contemporary rendering of good taste and architectural mastery steeped in deep, deep history. Modernist-leaning furniture is well-picked and well-placed (a white tulip-style table surrounded by mix-and-match white Magis and Panton chairs), but the space really sings when it comes to the highly personal, slightly eccentric layer of detail. Objects like twisted horn candleholders, antique trunks and a marionette ensemble are sparely, cleverly placed alongside artwork and installations Patrizio designed himself. In a series of small, arch-shaped cubbies in the circular stairway, he displays four sculptures he pieced together with dismembered porcelain doll parts and found objects. There’s the installation of 47 tiny bowls painted gold on the inside, and my favorite, a bright-green triptych made from dried mosses–as green as any I’ve ever seen alive–rocks and dirt, all arranged inside three wooden display boxes. I will very likely steal this idea someday.

Head downstairs, under stone archways, through cavernous Etruscan labyrinths that tunnel through tufa rock, and emerge in the most breathtaking terrace in Italy. We ate breakfast out here occasionally, under the wrought-iron pergola, but more often opting for early afternoon proseco, while our kiddos swam in the cave pool. The only pool in the entire town is secretly tucked into one of the Etruscan caves. It’s spectacular. There’s also a little lounge area, wine cellar and a secret art installation squirreled away in the depths of the caves.

The charming, ancient town is a magical, inextricable part of the experience. In many ways, the town–population 22 (200-something in the summertime), accessed only by a slender footbridge–is the experience. You don’t come to Domus Civita without wanting to come to Civita itself. One church, one square, a handful of restaurants (although we went to the same one almost every night) and countless stone alleyways, arches and ivy-covered walls. By the end of your stay, neighbors will recognize you at the cafe in the morning and you won’t get charged the tourist price for a cappuccino. You will pass your favorite restaurant owner on the bridge riding her scooter into town in the morning with her pink helmet, and she will wave. The night before she may have tousled your toddler’s hair or fetched a soccer ball for your kids, so they could play in the square while you finished your wine at the table. You will sit on the steps of the church with men who have been sitting on the same steps for the last 70 years. After a week, you will feel more comfortable than a tourist. Settled in. But just as enchanted as the day you arrived.

The Details
The three-bedroom house sleeps six, and there’s plenty of room to spread out and find privacy across four floors. Prices range from $2,950 (low season) to $4,950 (high season) for a week. Patrizio is the consummate host, providing amazing the best recommendations (better than most travel guides) and will help you line up in-home dinners and cooking lessons. Rent it at domuscivita.com.

In Puglia, the flat, silty landscape is dotted with crumbling, abandoned masserias–fortified farmhouse estates (that look more like castles than farmhouses, but there’s not a perfect translation in English), built by landowners more than 500 years ago to protect their farms from pillaging Greeks and Normans and countless other warring factions. Off country roads and highways, you can see the massive, regal-looking structures lording over the olive groves, fruit trees and grapevines. Once they were guarded, fortified with looming towers and giant stone walls, now lopsided and crumbling into disrepair. I imagine they were pretty expensive to keep up, after enemy warfare and  looting bandits were no longer a concern.

A few of them have been saved by the lucky, brave soul who takes on a daunting renovation, converting the old stone structures into agriturismo b&bs or vacation rentals. Villa Pizzorusso is one such example–a jaw-dropping, absolutely flawless example–that a San Francisco-based couple (one part Puglian native) bought six years ago and spent three years rehabbing. Parts of which date back to the 1500s, the main level, all stone arches, ancient rough-hewn stone floors and star-vaulted ceilings, retains a rustic simplicity despite being filled with pristine, modern furnishings like ivory horse-hair chairs and an extra-long dining room table made with a beautiful slab of buried teak wood from Bali. Ancient ceramics abound, stone-carved stairs have been worn away in the center from use, and most charmingly, an old olive press that was found in the living room when they bought it hangs above the fireplace. Upstairs, an owner’s wing was added in the early 1800s (the noble quarters), and the Moorish and neoclassical architectural details are far more extravagant: smooth colorful tiled floors, the faded remains of pastel frescos across ceilings, ornate wood-carved chandeliers, and beautiful antiques in every room to match. There’s a turret at each corner; once watchtowers, they’ve been turned into closets (and in one case, a shower), and views from every single window are unfathomably beautiful. Red soil, pink light and silvery green leaves, the agricultural landscape unfolds with vineyards, fields of grain and secolari, those magnificent, gnarled hundreds-of-years-old olive trees, planted in perfect pin-straight lines as far as the eye can see.

The place is over-the-top stunning inside and out, but we were happiest outside, and spent 90 percent of our waking hours in the courtyard, cooking in the 500-year-old outdoor oven, eating figs we picked right off the trees, swimming in the extra-long pool running along the fortress wall that flanks the citrus grove. There’s a dining table under a pergola, a hammock under the fig tree, lounge chairs around the pool, an outdoor living room with cushy furniture, and smaller tables with chairs scattered about. For anyone with kids, there cannot be  a more perfect spot in all of Italy (the photos don’t begin to do the scale or beauty of the place justice). They never tired of exploring, catching geckos or swimming in that long, rectangular pool (yes, even under the stars). One evening we took them out into the olive groves at dusk, and it felt like some kind of enchanted fairytale, where they could climb trees, scale old walls, create makeshift forts, and duck in and out of old, empty outbuildings once used for storing fruit and olives, a blacksmith shop and additional sleeping quarters for farm workers. Although we fell pretty hard for Puglia, which is garnering a well-deserved reputation as a beautiful, more real/authentic (we didn’t see a single other American traveler) and reasonably priced alternative to Tuscany, it was difficult to leave Villa Pizzorusso to explore. I guess that’s the magic though–you really don’t need to.

The Details
Sleeps up to 14  across six bedrooms. Prices start at $5,135 during low season and $10,250/week during the high. Also included: two bikes, cleaning service and a wonderful welcome basket full of local specialties–wine, cheese, and taralli. Rent it at villapizzorusso.com or by emailing [email protected].com.

It’s been almost two months since I posted about Patrizio Fradiani’s rehab in Civita. There’s been a lot of under-the-hood work going on, like plumbing and electrical, so the progress isn’t as visual as it will be in the coming weeks. The facade is getting restored and all the wooden ceilings and painted brick sandblasted. Interior walls are being built, while old ones are restored, scraped and replastered. They’re installing new stairs, which will allow access to the caves and the garden, and restoring a pair of beautiful old doors Patrizio found in the house. And  the most grueling projects so far: Patrizio decided to “rescue” a portion of the yard, which had inadvertently become a dump for the last 50 years for an entire section of town. “It all had to be done by hand–three guys, three weeks to remove the dirt and debris, but now it has doubled in size and the views are amazing,” he says, like it was nothing. In the process, they uncovered a remnant of an old butto, which is a well that collected old broken pottery for each house, so if you’re lucky enough to come across one, you can see the history of the house through the broken pieces. It’s like an archeological dig. “The one we found in our garden belonged to a house that had long ago collapsed, leaving us with remnants from the 16th century.” I love watching the space take shape. Even in this condition, the light has such a magical quality.

There’s been a steady stream of journalists and photographers coming through Detroit lately, many of whom, like the Montreal-based travel writer Alexandra Redgrave (assignment: local craft for enRoute magazine), either stop or stay at Honor & Folly. It’s been great fun. After arriving from the airport (without her luggage), Alex and I grab a quick drink at Sugar House downstairs, and she gives me a recent copy of the magazine. Inside, I immediately spot a story she wrote about Tuscan farm estates, including Tenuta di Spannocchia–a gorgeous sprawl of a place with lemon trees, climbing ivy, crumbling farmhouses and animals.

“Spannocchia is rustic,” she tells me. “You’re not staying on a farm that was set up at the same time as the hotel to add to the overall bucolic experience; you’re visiting a working farm that has existed in some form or another for centuries. The spaces are sparse, with very simple furnishings but also a few unexpectedly ornate details.” Details that make you realize there’s something special at work. You know the type. A hand-painted porcelain sink covered in pink roses and a ceiling stamped with old family crests.

According to her story, the owner Randall Stratton has been running the 1,100-acre property for the last 20 years with his wife, Francesca, whose grandfather bought the land in 1925 to use as a writer’s retreat. Creative visitors have been leaving their mark on the property ever since–from a painter who is recreating Spannocchia’s entire history on the granary’s walls to an architecture student who helped rehab a guesthouse that previously sat abandoned for at least 30 years. My favorite quote from the owner, also an architect by training: “We’re not really restoring the property,” says Randall. “We’ve just adapted it to the modern world. I think it’s a monument to a way of life that has almost disappeared.”

The Details
To stay at Tenuta di Spannocchia, you have to be a member of the Spannocchia Foundation (it’s $45 a person or more, depending on membership level). Once that’s ironed out, you can rent one of the guesthouses, starting at about $1000 a week in low season. Or an individual room in the b&b for $113 a night.

[Photos from top: Danilo Scarpati (top two), via Tenuta di Spannocchia, Alexandra Redgrave, Danilo Scarpati, Alexandra Redgrave (last two)]

Patrizio Fradiani can’t help himself. A full-fledged serial vacation house renovation junkie, he and his partner, Mark, were in Italy last summer at their amazing Tuscan farmhouse (which I’ve written about here loads of times) when they took a day trip to the storybook hilltop town of Civita di Bagnoregio accessed only by footbridge, fell into its charming clutches–all ivy-covered stone arches, cobblestones and etruscan ruins–and bought one of the original stone houses sitting on top of cisterns. The house is pretty dilapidated, but like Patrizio’s previous vacation house projects, it’s sure to be unfathomably stunning, designed down to the most intricate detail and full of heart. Below, these images of the place–an ancient wreck dating back to 1300s–make it hard to believe it will be finished in August and ready for guests. He has orchestrated an aggressive design, build and decorate schedule, and he just returned last week from the initial stages, including some pretty grueling work like ripping out the long-neglected overgrown garden (to find grottoes). From now until August–when I’ll be staying there for a week with my family–I’ll be posting behind-the-scenes reports of his progress. Not only is Patrizio the very best kind of character (funny, charming and passionate), he’s also immensely talented and hard-working and for anyone interested in architecturally significant renovation, the transformation will be a thrill to watch.

If I sound a bit moony, my apologies: I really love the story of this beautiful mountain lodge, which owners Stefano and Giorgia first bought as a holiday house before deciding to quit their jobs in the fashion industry, uproot their lives in the city and and move to the Italian countryside full-time with their three children. After rehabbing the 16th-century hunting house, the interior was thoughtfully decorated by Giorgia, who traveled around Europe picking out special pieces, both antique and modern. It has a humble farmhouse feel with lots of natural materials and a quiet, understated luxury. You have to rent the entire place; it’s not a bunch of rooms rented to different parties, and because they have kids, they understand how to design a space that truly caters to families (a big bunk room, outdoor whirlpool perfectly sized for kids, and activities like learning to chop wood). Guests come with loads of off-site plans, but once they see the place (and its steam room, ancient spruce sauna and magnificent grounds), Stefano says they end up ditching their itinerary to relax. And who’d blame them? Stafano and Giorgia are 100 percent-dedicated to doting on their guests–cooking dinner, picking out wine, leading mushroom-hunting excursions, and recommending hikes in the surrounding forests, mountains and meadows of the Dolomites. Rent it at welcomebeyond.com.

When I spent a week at Podere Palazzo almost four years ago with my family, all the fresh plantings on the grounds were teeny-tiny nubs, and a few of the spindly cypress trees had wooden tree crutches to help hold them up. We didn’t mind; the surrounding views are breathtakingly beautiful in every direction. But the owner (and my dear friend) Patrizio, who is relentlessly passionate about his native landscape, had always dreamed of having a formal Italian garden like the historical villas of Italy. “At some pont I started fantasizing of a hybrid garden that was at once formal yet more rustic than most formal gardens,” says Patrizio. “I wanted to create a viewing axis from the south side of the house towards the valley that would become an experience of its own. Most successful Italian formal gardens create not just a special oasis, curated to the max, but also an amazing dialogue with the landscape around. And that became my main goal: getting the beauty of the landscape around the house to ‘speak’ to the home with an intermediate element that was both architectural and natural.”

The formal garden project started hand-in-hand with a more naturalistic garden project for the remaining four acres. “Despite my enthusiasm and desire to get it all done fast, it has become the most fun work-in-progress of my life. Gardening requires a lot of patience and the game is in the waiting. Every year I say, ‘The garden this year looks great, but next year will be better.’ And that’s because you learn how to trim a rose bush better, learn which plants do better with the dry summers and wet winters, which are more subject to pests…” He also wanted to create a modern farm, where the grounds are not just beautiful but also edible. In the more naturalistic part of the land, where there were already Oak trees, Elm trees, and wild pear and plum bushes,  he planted 106 olive trees on one side of a hill and 50 fruit trees on the side, plus every herb you can think of.

“The formal garden is more extravagant in the plantings and aside from classic staples like Lavenders, Santolina, Viburnums, Cotoneaster, Artichoke plants, we infused it with edible herbs, hundreds of flowering bushes and roses and an organic vegetable garden that in each season grows and produces a bounty of goodies,” says Patrizio, who has grown into a self-professed countryside and garden addict. The knowledge and skill he’s garnered is so inspiring. But most of all, I love how he rhapsodizes about every single individual plant (way too many to include here). “The creeping Rosemary is a beautiful plant that requires lots of patience but is extremely rewarding (that is the creeper you see falling down on the pool rock wall). It is so elegant and slow in the way it grows down on a wall, and it blooms all year round. It also provides the only flowers in the months of January and February–how precious is that? And we use it to cook and roast in the fireplace.”