I’m lucky to be visiting Italy’s Lake Como for a week. Just south of the Alps, 10 miles from Switzerland open but as a semi tropical climate. One of the reasons we decided to visit was the multitude of amazing gardens in this region. Our first visit was to Villa Carlotta - a gorgeous Chilean wine palm has clearly survived many winters here. Gigantic tulip trees, European sycamores (Platanus orientalis), some pretty coral trees (Erythrina sp.) and gorgeous gardens.

Two observations from Europe so far-European lindens (Tilia x europaea) are everywhere, and in bloom now with sweet perfume. These trees are a naturally occurring cross between bigleaf (Tilia platyphyllos) and littleleaf (Tilia cordata) lindens.

And second, the European beeches are amazing here in their native region! The tree in the photo below I thought was amazing ports long, straight trunk.