Roman spring

A recent comment from Ross Hamilton set me thinking about two "aquatic" features I remember with great fondness from visits to Rome ... Ross was writing about suggestions for an architectural feature in a masonry wall I had imagined constructing in my new Brooklyn garden ... "My only thought ... would be to have a screen that has a (large) architectural fragment at its centre, and perhaps at its base, a small pond? A fragment would fit nicely into the Brooklyn sense of place, I think. Think of moss and fern covered ruins in Italy."

I was feeling a little winter tired when I read this, and I immediately recalled two wonderful memories of Rome, even had these photos from my last visit to Rome, in 2003 (so long ago!) ... one at the Forum and another in the Vatican Museums, both of which seem to fit Ross' description of moss and fern covered ruins.

First the Forum, which was actually full of fascinating vegetation in early May ...

At the entrance to the Palatine Hill is this striking composition of ferns, mosses, a few callas, and I don't know what else, water seeping continually down through the mass of vegetation on rock. Is this a vertical garden from antiquity? I've always wondered whether this was created in more recent times, or perhaps started as a spring, its beauty recognized and "cultivated" over the centuries. It's quite large, maybe twenty or so feet tall, as I remember.

Whatever it is, it captured my fancy when I first saw it many years ago, long before I became a gardener, and has remained as a powerful visual memory. If you know anything about this "vegetable fountain," please let me know.

The other similar aquatic feature is in the Octagonal Courtyard in the Vatican Museums, the very courtyard where some of the most famous sculptures in western civilization reside--the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoon ...

So this is how I interpret Ross' suggestion for my Brooklyn garden. Crazy, I suppose. So very out of place to my mind. Even if something like this could be created in our climate, would it ever seem right? But what a wonderful fantasy!