Palermo has a 200-year-old botanical garden with a vast and stunning plant collection and a crazily cheap entrance fee. Obviously there are different flowers to see each month: this is the garden in August.
These photos are all by my super-talented sister Susanna. Click on any photo to see a high resolution enlargement.
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The Dangerously Truthful Diary of a Sicilian Housewife 
Really beautiful fotos cathing the atmosphere of the garden! In this botanic garden of Palermo Goethe once walked up and down and thought about the problem of the “Urpflanze”, i.e. ~ root plant, which is the basis for all other plants, in the sense of a metamorphosis as mechanism of development of all plants. He thought that the basic entity of a plant is the leave. Nice try Goethe! If we think of cells with chlorophyll (=most primitive form of a leave) and their DNA as basic entity, the idea of a metamorphosis as mechanism of development of all kind of plants is not so wrong …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Journey
(Hey, again, you have not read this book? You should! And don’t forget the other of my reading tips, such as Mary Taylor Simeti: On Persephone’s island)
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Leave? Leaf! 🙂
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Have you seen this?
My favourite recent discovery about plant life and their roots!
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden-internet
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@Sicilian Housewife: Ah, very interesting 🙂
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Thank you for sharing these amazing photographs! I was privileged to visit the Palermo Botanical Gardens in 2011 with my family. We were awestruck by the beauty, majesty, and AGE of many of the trees in the gardens. We bought some provisions from the nearby Belaro Street Market and had a picnic lunch on the grounds–molto bene!
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We had a picnic there too!
I was amazed by the huge ficus trees with all their air roots. SO exotic!
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Palermo has so much to recommend it! I always love going to the gardens. Thanks so much for sharing.
Hugs!
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I love the way they change through the year – and I really should go there more often!
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Nice post, and nice pictures! Actually I didn’t know of these beautiful gardens in palermo. Tks for sharing!
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Do you visit Palermo regularly? Definitely worth a visit if you come again – especially if you start finding the traffic and noise irritating. It is so peaceful!
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The Irish Orchid Society had a feature in their newsletter about the Botanic Garden in Palermo.
Click to access april2010.pdf
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What a lovely article – thank you for that! I’ve passed it on to my nephew who is passionate about botany and was delighted with the orchid houses.
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Where is the snow?!!😤
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Oh, it all melted after ten minutes. Come on! Snow ina Sicily? You gotta be kidding!
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What beautiful photos. The banana tree reminds of my parents’ banana orchard back home 🙂
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A banana orchard sounds highly impressive. Do you have any photos?
They only grow as one-off novelty plants in Sicily, because summer doesn’t quite last long enough to ripen the fruits – unless you wrap them in black bin liners, which looks horrible!
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I attempted to visit the gardens in 2013 but they were closed. It was mezzogiorno on a Friday in May. I took a peak through the fence…lovely. I got lucky and spent time on a late Saturday afternoon at the glorious Giardini Inglesi!
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That’s such a disappointment and I’m so sorry you missed the gardens!
May has several national holidays in Italy so I would guess that’s why you found them closed. The gardens are usually open every morning and one of the few places in Sicily which are pretty reliable about programmed opening hours!
The Giardino Inglese was a good second choice though! And I hope my sister’s photos gave you a good “virtual tour” of the botanical gardens!
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The photos are beautiful. I plan to return this coming May and will try again!
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This is their official website, which may warn you of potential closures:
http://www.ortobotanico.unipa.it/Benvenuto_eng.html
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Sicily’s colors are so intense and only made more beautiful by Susanna’s photos.
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I have a computer full of her marvellous photos taken all around Sicily. I’m glad you like them, and I must share more…
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Loved the photos, Edie Isley as it is still all wintry where I live. Re your nominations: – is it possible, and are we allowed, to vote for you more than once per category? I have already voted once in each.
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Haha, spellcheck! That first word is supposed to be “especially”!
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I wondered what Edie Isley was!!!
Thanks v. much for the voting support Beba! ❤ – it seems you can go and vote each day….
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But these can’t have been taken in February.. surely?! Reassure me that the weather in Sicily is not THAT good.
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No, it’s not that good!!! They were taken in the summer. I should have mentioned that, actually, as all the flowers to see change each month. These are August flowers.
December is another fantastic month to visit as there are lots of tress which produce huge, spectacular flowers in almost every colour before the spring leaves sprout – not just magnolias, but other exotic species as well.
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Those flowers up top ALWAYS amaze me because they ALWAYS look like they’re made out of porcelain. Ugh, I looooove botanical gardens. Cannot wait till Moscow’s spring back to life in a few months.
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Does Moscow have many flowery places? I always imagine it as being snowy and full of winter twigs!!!
(And the Hermitage, that’s the other thing I like to imagine when I think of Russia!) I must visit one day 😉
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We do have PLENTY by the way of winter twigs, but spring and summer here are absolutely divine here – check out https://gohomeandaway.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/moscow-in-bloom/
As for the Hermitage – that was a big of a purposeful misdirect on my part. The Hermitage Garden in Moscow has nothing to do with the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. Which doesnt actually have a garden 🙂
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Oh wow! Stunning flowery photos!
And the Hermitage comment was just my way of demonstrating that I really do need to learn a bit more about Russia!!!
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Thanks – we’ve been to Palermo a couple of times before. We haven’t been to the Gardens – it’s on the list for later in the year!
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Please give my compliments to your sister Susanna – marvelous pictures.
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Thank you! I’ll pass the message on!
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