The word bastide evokes a country house in Provence. This word is a commercial siren song in Provence today, but what does it really mean? Thirteenth century manuscripts used it to describe fortifications, but by the seventeeth and eighteenth centuries, it had come to mean an elegant estate. Specialist Nerte Dautier compares the Provençal bastide to the Tuscan villa, both being « “a kind of rural habitat which combines an aristocratic or middle-class residence with a working farm and gardens.”

There is a debate currently among members of the Mediterranean Garden Society about Sparoza, an innovative garden near Athens, dating from the 1960s, where the society was born and which it still contributes to maintaining. Its custodian, Sally Razelou, was the MGS’s first president. For various reasons including Sally’s inevitable aging, the future of this garden is in doubt. I was asked to explain why I think this historic garden is really important for an association like the MGS, with its worldwide membership and growing international interest. Here is what I wrote: