STIGMA

Lefty Gardens will take parte in the 24th Chaumont-sur-Loire International Garden Festival with a lush woodland garden full of life.

The landscape design studio of Davide Cerruto and Walter Coccia will take part in the 24th Chaumont-sur-Loire Garden Festival with a project entirely Made in Italy, from design to construction. Stigma, this is the name of the garden, was created with the collaboration of the landscape architect Arianna Tomatis and the supply of plants from the Coplant partner nurseries of Canneto sull’Oglio (Mn) and Antica Pieve di Bedizzole (Bs).

In central France, not far from the towns of Amboise and Blois, there is a unique place, which combines the undoubted charm of the French palaces, a UNESCO heritage site, with the art and poetry of beautiful and often visionary gardens. We are talking about the Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, a wonderful park that develops around the castle of the same name, which hosts the International Garden Festival every year. Now in its 24th edition, the Festival will be open until November 3rd.

A place of creativity and experimentation, the Chaumont estate is unique in the circuit of Loire castles, because it welcomes the best landscape artists in a true sancta sanctorum dedicated to their art and gives them the opportunity to dare and interpret new ways of creating landscapes.

We are happy to be among the selected designers this year – only two Italians – among the hundreds of applications received from all over the world. The theme chosen for the 2024 edition is “Garden, source of life“, an evocative and poetic yet very current common thread, which reminds us of our responsibility towards creation.

SOURCE OF LIFE: LET’S RETHINK THE GARDEN
They crawl, buzz, dig, circle. They are insects, almost invisible creatures for us, irreplaceable full-time workers for nature. A category of living beings that contributes more than any other to the common good: insects are central in the food chain, they contribute to pollination, recycle nutrients from organisms, make the soil fertile, trigger biological control mechanisms. And the list goes on. Without their tireless work, the world would be a barren and depressed land. Yet, insects are disappearing – or at least drastically decreasing in species and number – amid general indifference, and the consequences of this trend can be dramatic.

The time has come to face the problem. We must have the courage to abandon the anthropocentric garden and start from the basics to arrive at a new garden model that puts habitats and biodiversity at the center and re-establishes a balance that has become precarious. This is the goal we must all set ourselves starting… today. If the garden is the place of nature par excellence, let’s bring it back to that obvious function: a space in which the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms coexist in harmony. One day we may even discover that it is not only a possible garden, but also a pleasant place to spend your time.

THE STIGMA PROJECT
From our reflection and our desire to participate in the change, the idea that we proposed to the Festival was born, inevitably and urgently: a forest garden teeming with life from the canopy to the subsoil. The project, created in collaboration with the architect Arianna Tomatis, is called “Stigma” – the name of the tracheal opening that insects use to breathe, an element that distinguishes them from vertebrates, which instead lack it – but it does not only focus on insects. It represents, in fact, a “widespread” bug hotel ready to welcome a large number of these, but also mammals and birds, because nature does not work in watertight compartments but aims for interaction and balance.

From the observation of earthworms, a symbol of soil fertility, the sinuous shapes of the walkways and spiral passages are born which introduce the visitor to an itinerary dotted with points of interest: a lake with bank vegetation, mammal dens among the bushes, birds’ nests hanging from trees, clearings and rest areas in the open greenery. The garden created is by its vocation an environment in balance between plants and animals, efficient in every aspect (botanical associations, water saving, integrated pest control). Beetles, ladybugs, spiders, bees, butterflies, hoverflies, caterpillars, but also lizards, frogs, birds, mice and small mammals move among piles of compost, bark, holes in the ground, trunks and stones set up along the path, in a cycle vital that changes and renews itself continuously.

With our team we shaped the lines of the garden and then designed the dens of mammals, insects and birds, creating them with our own hands in Monza with completely natural materials recovered from our gardens (willow branches and hazelnuts, moss, dried grass fibers , coconut fibre), for a project and construction completely Made in Italy.

LEFTY GARDENS

Behind Lefty Gardens there are two designers from Lombardy, Davide Cerruto and Walter Coccia, who in 2014 founded a landscape architecture studio with the intention of carrying forward their personal idea of garden and landscape: strong planning, search for beauty and low consumption of resources are the three founding concepts that have characterized their works across the board for 10 years, be they terraces, villas, parks, farmhouses or hanging gardens.