Spanish Inspiration for Florida Patios

by Bill Pitts

Spanish-style patio gardens are particularly well suited to Florida. With the many historic connections between our state and Spain — from plants to the Spanish influence on our architecture — the Spanish patio just feels right here.

Last year I had the opportunity to visit Cordoba, the ancient city in southern Spain where the art of the Spanish patio garden first developed, and where today it reaches its apotheosis. In courtyard after courtyard, I saw gardens that were, to quote famed garden writer and designer Penelope Hobhouse, “an inspiration for today’s urban gardener.”

The Spanish have been practicing what we now call “vertical gardening” for centuries. While the floor area of the typical patio is small, its walls may rise 2 or 3 stories, and the gardeners of Cordoba long ago began using this to their advantage by growing plants on the walls, in window boxes and especially hanging pots by the dozen. Container plants on the floor are massed in pyramid-type arrangements to conserve horizontal space. Lemons, bougainvillea, hibiscus and rubber trees are trained as espaliers. In one courtyard, baskets of orchids hang from the trunk of a palm; in another, a rose scrambles up the trunk of a jacaranda and tumbles back down. Interestingly, the hanging basket, so popular in American gardens, is not common on these patios, though I have seen some plantings in ceramic bowls hanging from a balcony.

The use of water features is also inspiring. Nearly every patio includes a fountain. These tend to be small and burbling, rather than spouting or spraying, and sometimes little more than a copper pipe trickling into a stone basin. Half hidden with foliage and flowers, the fountains can be as much about the soothing sounds and cooling sensation they create as their appearance. This discreet style would translate well to many Florida patios, where a more ornate, multi-tiered fountain might overwhelm.

The ceramics for which Spain is famous are another common element in the patio garden. Some of the most beautiful courtyards have tiled walls as well as floors, and all have a plate or bowl hanging here and there. Including a decorative Spanish or Mexican plate (both usually have holes for mounting) is an easy way to add a Spanish touch to a garden. They complement hanging plants, add color to shady spots and require no care except an occasional cleaning.

The most important element of the Spanish patio garden is best summed up by a Cordobés woman who told me, “¡Hay que poner el patio!” This translates roughly to, “You’ve got to do up the patio!” And this means many things. It means having canaries twittering in ornamental cages. It means a carnation or sangria for the visitor. It means a little Flamenco music playing in the background, colored lanterns glowing in the dusk or simply some blossoms floating in the fountain. It means, above all, having lots of plants, especially flowers.

Some of the best patio gardens give the illusion of being surrounded on all four sides by fantastic floriferous waterfalls. Flowers spill from the roof onto a terrace, cascade into window boxes and pour from hanging pot to hanging pot, creating pools of color on the pebbled mosaic floors.

The plant most often used to create such effects is the trailing geranium. Though a lover of the dry Spanish air, it does well here in Florida during our cooler months (the nicest time to be outside enjoying the patio). In shady spots, variegated spider plant, Swedish ivy and Boston ferns are often used. Citrus, gardenias, jasmines and roses are grown as much for their scent as their foliage and flowers. All of these plants thrive here in Florida.

But the patio gardens of Cordoba are often eclectic, and just about any plant is fair game. If there is any rule, it seems to be that the majority of the plants should be easy to care for because their sheer numbers do not leave much time for coddling. One gardener proudly displayed his collection of bonsai alongside more traditional nasturtiums. A gardener here in Florida told me she planned to use all orchids in a shady Spanish-style wall planting, and on my own patio I grow mostly culinary herbs on the walls.

Color schemes can be complex in Spanish patio gardens. A sense of unity is maintained with the backdrop of usually pure white walls, and also by painting flower pots all the same color — often blue, but also green, brown or even red. The color should echo that of the ceramics and the house.

The Cordobés garden is not low maintenance, and many of the prettiest I saw were the result of a team effort of several gardeners living in the buildings that share the patio. Watering can be especially difficult when there are dozens of high hanging pots. Though I envy the drama of a three-story wall completely covered in trailing geraniums, I console myself with the fact that my humble one-story patio is fairly easy to keep watered, especially since I put rain barrels beneath the downspouts. However, after visiting the gardens of Cordoba, I cannot help but feel that condominium and apartment dwellers here in Florida have a terrific opportunity for a kind of Spanish-style community gardening.

© 2009 Bill Pitts. Originally published in Florida Gardening, Aug/Sep 2009. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.