Flowers by the sea, falling down parched walls and in ancient cloisters 

Summer flowers in Sicily are bursts of vibrant colour. And during my time in Sicily last summer I saw flowers on balconies, by the sea and the roadside, in a tiny hamlet almost abandoned, in a rambling house garden with views to the sea, in cloisters and wild gardens of an ancient abbey nestled in a forest hundreds of metres above the sea, in pots clustered along streets and on faded stone walls of an interior village.

In bloom

Cactus in bloom with the softest mauve, oleander laden with deep pink flowers, geraniums covered in classic geranium pinks and reds, the Indian Fig yellow of a roadside fico d’India flower just starting to open, roses, clumps of lavender massed in the outer garden of a mountain abbey, and the dazzling purple flowers of bougainvillea cascading down a village stone wall. All  beautiful.

And the words used by the author and landscape architect Clare Littlewood in her book “Gardens of Sicily” to describe how Sicilian roadside flowers  ' offer a glorious show of spontaneous colour', explain the delight of seeing Sicilian summer flowers. There is a feeling of spontaneity.

The flowers and where they were spotted:

Bougainvillea, Sambuca di Sicilia 

Geranium and oleander in the hamlet of Cipampini

Lavender in the garden of the Abbey Santa Maria del Bosco near Contessa Entellina

Roses and lavender at the abbey, Santa Maria del Bosco

Roses in the fields of the abbey of Santa Maria del Bosco 

Cactus, fico d'India, by the roadside outside Castellana Sicula in the Madonie Mountains

Hibiscus in the streets of  Santa Flavia by the Tyrrhenian Sea

Yellow wildflowers at Santa Tecla by the Ionian Sea

Oleander in Taormina up above the Ionian Sea

 Cactus in the tiny hamlet of Cipampini 

Rambling gardens of Casa Cuseni in Taormina

Hibiscus Casa Cuseni

Oleander pink in the hamlet of Cipampini

Geraniums in the tiny village of Isnello in the Madonie Mountains

Agapanthus in the garden of Casa Cuseni in Taormina

Roses in the cloisters of the Abbey of Santa Maria del Bosco

Salve,

Suzanne