The Corfu Branch of the MGS

Corfu Branch Joint Heads are Rosey Boehm and Christina Lambert. Members and prospective members please contact them by email with questions, ideas, suggestions. 

Ελληνικό ιστότοπος του MGS

Forthcoming Events

Monday 10 to Thursday 13 March - Attica
Trip to Athens

Vorres Museum (photo: This Is Athens)

We have put together a wonderful trip to Athens at the beginning of March. We will spend three days visiting some very special gardens and nurseries around Athens including Sparoza, the home of the Mediterranean Garden Society. Please find the details of the programme below.

Monday 10 March

• Vorres Museum - Paiania
  The Vorres Museum is one of Athens best kept secrets. The museum, which is dedicated to contemporary Greek art and folk art, houses one of the largest collections of contemporary art in Greece. The courtyard gardens are simply beautiful - a series of hidden gardens enveloped by high dry-stone walls. Under the guidance of local botanist Eleftherios Dariotis and in the light of an ever-changing climate the planting has been redefined. Extensive use of endemic species, drought tolerant plants adapted to the weather patterns of the area and a new dry section have been added, to make them a paradigm of Mediterranean gardening.
• Helios Eco Lab - Kouvaras Attica
  We will visit David Davis who has built Greece’s greenest house, Helios Eco Lab. It is a zero carbon, zero waste  'Living museum of sustainability' that develops new technologies, processes and behaviours for everyday living that are affordable, fun and above all sustainable. David will discuss with us how he lives off grid and what the impact of food choices is on sustainability. We will discuss how permaculture techniques can be incorporated into our local, seasonal, plant-based meals.

Tuesday 11 March

• Sparoza Garden - Paiania
  Sparoza is the home of the Mediterranean Garden Society. It has a quiet but steadily growing reputation in the gardening world for its longstanding philosophy of matching the aesthetic sensitivity of the gardener with the limitations and opportunities offered by the difficult and typically mediterranean conditions of this Attica hillside. It is a place where beauty and climate compatibility go hand in hand.

• Two private gardens developed by botanist Leftherios Dariotis - Paiania

• The Goat Garden
  Botanist Leftherios Dariotis planted this small but incredible diverse garden about seven years ago. This garden contains more than 300 species of plants. During the first year of planting it was watered once every 10 days during summer, in the second year once every 20 days and since then has never been watered. The plants are, mainly, sourced from Greece

• The Salvia Garden
  Leftherios tries out summer flowerers (including his beloved salvias) from other Mediterranean climate zones – mostly California, but also Chile, South Africa and southwest Australia. “Californian plants are particularly well adapted to our climate, with similar rainfall patterns and alkaline soils. Plants such as Epilobium and Keckiella evolved to flower in summer as a food source for hummingbirds, thus providing summer flowering that other Mediterranean plants lack.”

Wednesday 12 March

• Poulimenos Cactus and Succulent Nursery - Kapandriti
  The company Poulimenos "cacti and succulents" is a family business specialising in the production of cacti and succulents based in Kapandriti, Attica. The modern glass greenhouses contain all sizes and shapes of cacti and succulents which are grown for distribution throughout Greece and abroad.

• Gryllis Water Lilies Nursery near Marathonas
  Giannis Gryllis’ 27,000-square-metre nursery is more like a botanic park. He has developed themed gardens from around the world, a Japanese garden, Balinese teahouse, a newly planted Mexican desert, as well as gardens from China and Europe. He also has an extraordinary collection of Koi fish. He has lakes with water lilies, displays of grasses and forests of bamboo and much else. His plant nursery cultivates more than 1500 species specifically for mediterranean climates. 

Thursday 13 March

• A four-hour walking tour of central Athens in the morning.
  Katerina Tsitipi is an experienced and most entertaining tour guide. She has tailor-made a special tour for us. It is a combination tour of central Athens, showing us the hidden secrets of food and a walk down memory lane.

To register your interest in the event, please email mgscorfu@gmail.com

Past Events

Saturday 16th March 2024
The First MGS Corfu Branch Event
It was a beautiful day for the inaugural event of the Corfu Branch of the Mediterranean Garden Society held at Dr Kavvadias Organic Farm, a few kilometres north of Corfu Town.