I love cypress trees and here in Italy the Italian Cypress (Cupressus Sempervirens) has long been used as the mainstay of Italian formal gardens. The trees are often used to mark an entrance to a formal garden and the epitome of Italy for me is the rows of cypress trees lining driveways to houses.
Cypress Trees Mean Italy To Me
We have six cypress trees at the top of our drive (no space for more than that owing to other planting). They lead people down the drive to the house. Living out in the countryside, it is not always easy for people to find us. So telling them to look for the line of cypresses and follow them down to the house works well.
Cypress Trees Can Grow Tall
The trees were a metre high (just over three feet) when we put them in and they are now well over nine metres (30 feet)! I remember we had to plant them in the autumn when the trees were in their dormant period and. We were told to allow for how big the trees can eventually grow as they can get to 21 metres (70 feet).
Cypress trees grow well on dry land. Apart from watering in the new trees when we planted them we have never watered ours. And the hot dry summers here don’t take prisoners!
Cypress Avenue
These trees punctuate the landscape like dark green exclamation marks. They are often planted interspersed with other trees or shrubs as is the case in my image above, ‘Cypress Avenue’.
The trees line the drive to an organic farm and the cypresses are interspersed with umbrella pines. As you drive down between the trees it is very grand and imposing!
Cypress Heaven
In the image above, ‘Cypress Heaven’, see how the cypresses are interspersed with small round yellow-green conifers like pom poms. I think this is a delightful contrast in both size, shape and color. The elegance of the height and dark shadows of the cypress trees and the little dumpy, almost comforting dot of color provided by the smaller conifers is really eye catching. A wonderful piece of landscaping. Of course, although this looks like a garden it is in fact a garden edging a driveway and this wonderful planting continues on both sides of the driveway up to an Italian Villa.
Cypress View
But this final image, ‘Cypress View’ gives you the whole story. You can clearly see that you drive over the bridge and enter the long driveway lined by cypresses as you approach the house. Classic Italian and classic use of cypress trees.
This was originally posted on 16 May 2016 and updated and republished 23 February 2022.
Before you go
My name is Dorothy Berry-Lound an artist and writer. You can find out more about my art and writing at https://dorothyberryloundart.com.
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