Gardens of the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades

Grounds and gardens supervisor Michael DeHart has written a book, "Gardens and Plants of the Getty Villa." (Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer)

The ancient Romans cherished their perfectly symmetrical gardens.

"If they didn't have gardens they painted them on the walls, and if they had gardens they painted them on the walls anyway," says Michael DeHart, a horticulturist who's been supervisor for grounds and gardens at the J. Paul Getty Trust for the last 20 years and co-author of "Gardens and Plants of the Getty Villa" with Patrick Bowe.

To get a sense of the extent of their adoration, all any one has to do is stroll the Getty Villa's colonnades (called peristyles) and series of linked gardens. They feature neatly manicured hedges, Mediterranean-climate plants, pools and classical bronze sculptures, some of which are cast from molds of the originals excavated at the Villa dei Papiri -- the first century A.D. country house after which the museum and its gardens were modeled.

The southern Italian villa thought to belong to Julius Caesar's father-in-law was buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

J. Paul Getty had a special interest in the art and culture of ancient Rome. The billionaire oil tycoon had visited Pompeii and Herculeaneum as well as the National Archaeological Museum in Naples as a teen.

Sixty years later, when he began planning a museum and gardens in Malibu to house his collection from ancient Greece, Rome and Etruria, he decided to base it on the excavated findings (handwritten scrolls, garden murals, magnificent fountains, carbonized plant materials) at Villa dei Papiri and other houses of the period. But Getty, who was living in England at the time of its construction, never lived to see its completion in 1974.

The museum was closed for renovation in 1997 and reopened in 2006.

Granted, Getty Villa's gardens are not exact replicas but re-created to look as authentic as possible.

"All the plant materials that you find here you would have found in the atypical country home back in the first century," says Anne Watson, supervisor of grounds department at the Getty Villa as she leads a tour through the main gardens, including the Outer Peristyle Garden.

This formal garden that would have been used for contemplation and art appreciation is framed by a roofed colonnade and features a 210-foot-long rectangular pool down the center. In Roman times, pools were used for swimming or raising fish for food. But here it's strictly for looks.

A crushed gravel walkway edged with a low hedge of Asian boxwood encircles planting beds filled with a variety of trees, shrubs and plants -- each bed is no deeper than 18- to 20-inches because the garden is built on top of the Getty Villa parking structure -- and juts off to a Pompeian replica of

The herb garden at the Getty Villa. (Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer)

a recessed, circular bench with large lion paw ends.

There are matching Roman-style arbors dripping with grapevines, fountains and sculptures.

Colorful flowers ripple across the garden year-round, from paper-white narcissi to the tall yellow spikes of nettle-leaved mullein and vibrant orange marigold.

Red rose campion also grows here. Its thick leaves were often used as bandages.

"The Romans incorporated plants with medicinal, ritual, utilitarian and culinary uses everywhere," DeHart says. "They were using thistles to comb wool and root crops to dye fabric. They had utilitarian uses for everything.

"And the gods and goddesses were all over," he says. "There were rituals each month ... with plants associated with those gods and goddesses, and so they would make bouquets and have ceremonies with those plants."

In the Herb Garden -- a re-creation of one uncovered next to the Villa dei Papiri -- there are even more examples of plants with a purpose.

The garden is divided by a pool filled with water lilies and papyrus, which the Romans used to create a paperlike material to write on. In the symmetrical rectangular beds sages, mints, thyme, oregano, lovage and other culinary herbs grow in neat rows.

An olive terrace rises along the sloped bed. Grapes climb the arbor. Across the garden figs, apple, quince, plum and knobby yellow citron grow.

While these Mediterranean-climate trees, shrubs and plants might work in any Southern California garden they aren't necessarily drought tolerant.

"One of the things the Romans did was capture water in aqueducts," DeHart says. "They brought piped water to individual homes for the first time in history. So people could have a private garden using a lot of water and have the water to do that.

"The Romans cheated," he says. "But then we have the Owens Valley, so we cheat, too."

Admission to the Getty Villa is free but you must reserve a ticket in advance, or on the day of your visit, at www.getty.edu/visit or 310-220-7300. Parking is $15 per car.

Source: http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_18302615?source=rss

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