Villa Palona

Villa Palona is a beautiful garden that feels bigger than it is.  It is designed as a series of small spaces implying rooms that link into each other by features reaching through from adjacent rooms.  The front presents a garden punctuated by a pair of trimmed seventy-year old flowering cherry trees accented by yellow and purple magnolias.  The trees overreach an understory of undulating rhododendrons and azaleas, bordered by moss covered stone walls. Peeking through the conifer wall are a few branches of the large cherries, providing a splash of pink in the spring breaking up the green wall and giving the garden visitor a hint of what is on the other side. 

The back garden is a grove of feathery sawara cypress. The unique feature of the grove is that it is a result of layering from just three original trees.  There are currently a total of 23 trees linked together by the original branches, some of which are layered branches of layered branches from the three original trees. The back garden moves back into the side garden highlighted by curving evergreens that lead the eye to a specimen horsechestnut, grown from seed, and a prized southern magnolia.