For the best part of a year, I worked as a gardener at a private estate in Val d'Orcia, a region of Tuscany that feels much like the land that time forgot. South of Siena, Val d'Orcia is a time-furrowed landscape, with rolling hills and cypress-lined white roads - or strade bianche - the dust of which is hard to escape during the hazy summer days. To the south of the estate, beyond the medieval village of Monticchiello, lay La Foce - one of, if not the, most impressive countryside villas in Italy.
Today, La Foce is a destination that garden revelers and history enthusiasts flock to, but what we find there today is the result of a century-old vision to develop the barren landscape of southern Tuscany. In 1924, British-born writer Iris Origo and her husband, Antonio, fell in love with the estate and embarked on a project that remains captivating. The goal was never just to restore a villa, it was always to bring water, education and jobs to the people living there.
