I Vivai di Pistoia Posted by Serena on May 28, 2009 in Uncategorized
Pistoia has a long and interesting history, which I will spare you in this blog, but you may be interested to learn why the name Pistoia has a slightly familiar ring to it: Pistoia is the town that gave us the word ‘pistol’. Originally surgical knives were manufactured there, then daggers, and finally in the 16th century pistols. Today it specializes in trains and vivai (plant nurseries), and anyone who has traveled along the A11 autostrada between Pisa or Lucca and Florence will have marveled at the seemingly endless fields of miniature cypresses, olives, pines, and a myriad other ornamental shrubs and flowers. In fact this zone is Italy’s most extensive area of vivai.
Many of the vivai operate on an industrial scale, catering for larger contracts, but some of the smaller ones are open to the general public, and you can pop round to buy a couple of gerani (geraniums), un vaso di basilico o prezzemolo (a pot of basil or parsley), or even perhaps una palma (a palm tree).
If you regularly read my blogs you will know that we are keen gardeners, unfortunately however Lunigiana, the area where we live, isn’t noted for it’s ornamental plants. In fact the local motto could well be “se non lo si puo’ mangiare, non vale la pena coltivarlo” (“if you can’t eat it, it’s not worth growing”). So for us, a day trip to the vivai di Pistoia (the nurseries of Pistoia) was like taking a couple of kids to Disneyland. We do of course have an orto (vegetable garden) which provides us with our fresh pomodori, cipolle, aglio, zucchine, carciofi, bietole, patate, melanzane, e cosi’ via (tomatoes, onions, garlic, courgettes/zucchini, globe artichokes, leaf beat, potatoes, aubergines/egg plants, and so on). But we also have our ‘giardino d’amore’ (garden of love), as our neighbor mockingly likes to call it (ma non c’e’ niente di mangiare!), and in order to develop it, and in particular our custom built ‘block the nosy neighbors’ hedge, we need plants that we can’t get in this neck of the woods.
Not many shopping experiences can give so much pleasure for so little expense. In fact even if we had spent nothing and come away empty handed (apart from a few leaves of sage and mint that just happened to come off in my mother’s hands) we would have been quite content. A warm sunny day spent strolling amongst rows of brightly colored multi-formed plants, bathed in a stream of almost narcotic scents, the pungent flavor of gelsomino, caprifoglio e rose (jasmine honeysuckle and roses), what more could one ask?
So what did we buy? well, three lovely bushes for our ‘anti-neighbor’ hedge: un oleandro (an oleander), un lauro ceraso (a waxed laurel), and un pinco pallino (a flapdoodle, i.e. we can’t remember the name of the last one: in Italian we use the fictitious name ‘pinco pallino’ to mean ‘Joe Blogs’ or someone whose name we can’t remember). We also bought three stunning gerani for the wooden plant trough that my husband made, and elicriso (curry plant). And we still had change from 40 euros!
By the way, if you are interested in finding out about Pistoia, and what it has to offer, have a look at the following web sites for a start, the first is in Italian and the second is English: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistoia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistoia
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Comments:
James Martin:
Greetings from Piano di Collecchia in the Lunigiana! There’s one thing I don’t understand here. I’ve read all over about the industrial sprawl around Pistoia, but have never found it. We’ve even driven around looking for a parking spot in any around Pistoia. Niente. The surroundings aren’t any worse than any other place in Europe. (Still, thank God for the medieval, when people hadn’t yet given up their sense of beauty and proportion to crass commercial interests–just the waterways…)
Pistoia is one of my favorite places in Tuscany. When I mentioned this to an expat who lives in Florence, she agreed, “it’s like a smaller, gentler Florence.” Yes, a great piazza Duomo and market, wonderful restaurants, and a lack of tourist hordes. What more can you ask for?
james
VincePlato:
Hi Serena:
If ‘pistol’ comes from Pistol and ‘arsenal’ comes from Arsenale, are there any more place names in Italy that have give names to weaponry?
Also, given your name, do you feel a special kinship to Venice — Serenìsima Repùblica Vèneta?
Vince
Serena:
Salve Vince
This is a very interesting question that I’m going to research. However, “arsenale” is not a place name, but comes from a Venetian word, “arzana”, which comes from the Arabic “dar as-sinaa” meaning “house of trade”.
I love Venezia but I’ve never felt any special link between Venezia and my name.
Serena
Rowena:
Very funny about the ‘anti-neighbor’ hedge, because we have a similiar problem. For us it’s the fact that they do not maintain their garden and the ortica is threatening to overtake our vegetable garden which is separated by a meager wooden fence! My solution was to plant dwarf clumping bamboo but my husband (the italian in the family) insisted on rosmarino and some lavanda. In his opinion, at least we’ll be able to use them both in cooking or for attracting useful bees.
Serena:
Salve Rowena, Yes the ‘anti-neighbor hedge’ is a delicate subject, especially here where ‘le chiacchiere’ (gossip) is one of the main passtimes. Our strategy was to plant something that started off fairly small so as not to cause too much offense, but which will hopefully in a year or two make a pretty substantial barrier and allow us a bit of privacy. The rosemarino and lavanda is a good strategy, in fact we have a lot of plants which attract ‘le api’, le farfalle, ecc. What do you grow on your vegetable patch?
Bella:
Cara Serena,
Spero che i tuoi vicini non leggano questo blog!!! :-)))
rowena:
Everything that I can get my hands on in seeds, but you must know that tomatoes and zucchini rules!
Daniela:
Hi Serena,
I am a native Pistoiese – I agree with your comments about the nurseries. But I do not agree about the bad picture you are giving of Pistoia as an Industrial town – it looks like you have never been there.
Serena:
Salve Daniela, It wasn’t my intention to give a ‘bad picture’ of Pistoia, merely to try and explain why not many tourists visit it. In fact I know Pistoia well, and really like the centro storico. If you re-read my blog you will see that I praise this aspect of the town, and I have often recommended it to friends who are visiting Toscana and want to escape the tourists. From what I know of Pistoia it has been an important industrial town for a very long time, and there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just that most tourists come to Italy looking for the obvious stereotypical romantic places. One of my favourite places in Pistoia is the Marino Marini museum, which I didn’t have space for in my blog but hope to do a separate blog in the future. If you would like to contribute some thoughts on what makes Pistoia a special place for you I would love to hear them.
A presto, Serena