By the elegance of the Lady of Flowers, Susana and the greatness of the 20th century composer Sir William Walton, rises the complex La Mortella, commonly called 'divine myrtle'.
La Mortella is one of the most beautiful private garden, created in 50 years with art and love by Lady Walton, wife of the famous English composer Sir William Walton. She dead in the spring day of 2010.
In October 1949 they moved to Forio, the loving couple decided to build own maison in a sunny and bald ground, made of volcanic rocks. Nowadays the garden consists of several levels, from a sub-tropical environment downriver to a sunny one in hill.
The garden represented for the Lady of Flowers the metaphor of peace and refuge, where the soul submits to the eternal peace, broken by the only composer's melody.
The Lady desire has not dead with her, but keeps the memory alive thanks to her work Fondazione "William Walton and La Mortella" to manage and enhance the garden structure and flora.
The uniqueness of the garden is just its nature, made of rare specimens of plants, from a humid and shadowy sub-tropical environment to a sunny and Mediterranean one.
The entire garden is built according to a precise plan and consists of two different level, a rocky and panoramic sea-view, respectively the valley and hill. The lower place, called 'La Valle', is the most complete, planned by the English landscape architect Russel Page. The up garden, stretched on the hill, is otherwise the most recent by Lady Walton. All is enriched with fountains and flows in order to allow cultivation of many water plants like papyrus, lotus and water lily. In the tropical greenhouse "Victoria House" is cultivated, in a pool at the temperature of 28°C, the Amazon Victoria, the most large water lily. Also the very rare climbing of the Philippines, the Strongylodon macrobotrys, is a distinctive feature of the greenhouse, that in Spring offers wonderful falls of jade green flowers.
Famous are the collections of tree-ferns of Australia and New Zealand. Fabulous is also the rich set of camellia, agaves and a notable group of palms, more than 120 specimens, some of them cultivated at our latitude: Bismarkia nobilis, Dypsis decarii, Arenga, huge Caryota, Brahea.
Plants cultivated by L.W. with seeds imported from Argentina are so dear to her, like: Chorysia speciosa, Jacaranda mimosifolia, l’Eucalytus ficifolia.
The real garden peculiarity is not only the rich vegetation, but the combination of essence of nature and music art. It's just the music the second import key, which makes all so magic and unique. Susana has projected her life onto the garden and the garden itself is reflection of her lifestyle: the elegance that goes well with art.
The William's desire to help young musicians, giving them the occasion to made a public name, nowadays it's reality thanks to the many music performances that every year open the concert season.
