CNLA

A 10-person delegation connected to the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association travelled to Florence and the renowned nursery region of Pistoia to tour leading growers and garden centres and explore how Italian horticulture compares with practices in Canada.

The trip, made possible through an agri-marketing grant from the Government of Canada, brought together landscapers, growers, designers and garden centre owners for six days of site visits and industry discussions.

Delegates spent four days in Pistoia and two days in the Florence area, visiting operations including Vannucci Piante, Giorgio Tesi Group, Piante Mati Nursery, Vivai Cinelli, Naturart Village, Innocenti e Mangoni Piante and the retail garden centre Garden La Legnaia - Viridea.

Inside the Vannucci Piante is a five-hectare open-air show room with every plant variety, allowing customers a snapshot of their collection while saving them steps to locate specific plants in the over 500-hectare nursery.

The trip was organized by Communities in Bloom, on behalf of the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association, to discuss potential trade between Canada and Italy.

Peggy Head, national director of Communities in Bloom, said the small group format allowed participants to exchange ideas throughout the visits.

“We really get to know each other a lot better,” Head said. “We were able to communicate… and throw the ideas back and forth to each other.”

Several operational details at Italian nurseries stood out to her. At one facility, trucks were lowered to make loading easier and shipments were organized using colour-coded tags that identified the destination of each order.

Delegates noted the immense scale of container-grown tree production at many sites in Pistoia and Florence, including this towering row of trees at Innocenti e Mangoni Piante.

“So while we were there, they actually had like 65 trucks going out in one day,” Head said, noting shipments travelled across Europe and beyond.

“Not to the U.S., and definitely not enough to Canada,” she said. “Not yet anyway. We did ask.”

Head was struck by how growers present plants to customers. In some cases, large specimen trees are individually tagged and tracked so the buyer knows exactly which plant they are purchasing.

“They can look at that tree and know they’re getting that exact tree, and not just getting one like it,” she said.

The beautiful grounds of Giorgio Tesi Group.

The group also observed creative planting ideas that reflect how people garden in denser urban settings. One example involved combining plants within a single container to create layered privacy screens. Another approach involved training vines up bamboo structures above seating areas to create natural shade.

One of the most memorable concepts was a sensory “hug garden” designed for people with autism or social anxiety.

“One of the places had a ‘hug’ garden,” Head said. “So they go into this little garden, and the trees surround you like a little hug.”

Within the space, plants with different textures, heights and scents create a calming environment where visitors can pause before moving on to the next area.

“So I'm definitely going to be promoting that,” Head said. “The advantage of going to places like Italy is to get those ideas and bring them back.”