Zitrus exhibition Tuscany
Lemons, Lemons all about.….
Something truly unique!! Zitrus fruits of different size, shape and colors you find here.
Some time ago I had to join my wife in Tuscany to see an exhibition of citriculture. I was convinced I’d be terribly bored…..
What an error! In close vicinity to Pescia – known as one of the main transfer sites for flowers from all over the world – we found very well kept facilities with sections forexhibition and cultivation/sales of citruses.
As we were just the two of us and in the absolute dead calm ferragosto period we did not have a full guided tour but strolled, with an instructive booklet in our language in hand, through the huge exhibition hall. There were at the time some 100 different citrus plants, in rows of small or giant terracotta pots.
Lemon is not just a lemon
If you think “a lemon is just a lemon” – you’d be truly mislead.
There are citruses the size of a football, mandarines smaller that cherries, citrus plants where their leaves would never make you think of citrus, lemons without a real fruiting body but with up to ten long yellow fingers. Mandarines that look like a squirrel, huge cedri and oranges, cross-breedings of lemons and bitter oranges. Lemons with a bush more like a box hedge, trifoliate lemons. One walks under many pergolas with certainly more than 20 kilos of ripe oranges or lemons pending over one’s head.
Interesting also the original provenance of the different sorts from the Americas, China and Japan and then again from different regional areas, like North-Australia and others.
About the exhibition
The houses philosophy has been and continues to be to show and cultivate next to the “noble house species” also the rather rustic, peasant sorts. They have intentionally renounced to show what botanically would be easy to create: several citrus sorts growing and ripening at the same time on one tree, like for example lemons, oranges and mandarines.
When we visited the museum there were relatively few plants in flower, but even the few but big blooms offered an incredible flavour along the entire tour. According to the management of the museum spring with the peak of florescence and fall/winter with the ripe fruit would be best suited for a visit.
Technical information
Our experience in 2011: Entrance fee moderate, for 20 and more people an expert guided tour can be arranged (also in English language); perhaps by the owner himself who is a worldwide known expert for citruses.
Beyond that the management offers a kind of brunch in the halls for groups, advance booking needed.
In the entrance hall they offer in a small shop lots of things, from marmelade to porcelain, from olive oil to fresh herbs.
Easy to find, no parking problems, no long walking distances, all on ground level.
Result: It is more than worthwhile – and anything but boring!
Contact data are: Hesperidarium Museum
web site: http://www.giardinodegliagrumi.it
Via del Tiro a Segno, 55 (in Località Castellare di Pescia)
51012 Pescia Pistoia, Italien | • phone +39 0572 429191 | • fax 0572 429605
