How Terra Ascoltata was born
Until 2020, I believed I had no “green thumb.”
That year, I was working in a 15th-century house in Rome. On the terrace stood an old pomegranate tree in a pot, which had long stopped flowering. Only a few pale, fragile leaves appeared each spring—timid, hesitant. I could feel that the soil in the pot was exhausted, weary from years of life.
In a gesture that was part instinct, part challenge, I replaced all the soil with fresh earth—almost half a ton. The roots felt like dry stone.
A few months later, the pomegranate erupted in green. I don’t remember if it ever flowered, but for me, that moment was transformative: I, too, deserved the love of the earth. From that day on, I filled the terrace with plants, guided by a spontaneous, instinctive aesthetic. The terrace, and even the façade of the building, seemed to come alive with a new face, a new spirit.
When I returned to Saudi Arabia to manage one of our engineering branches in Riyadh, I didn’t mind leaving that garden behind. I had learned something important: beauty can be given without needing to own it.
Today, when I speak of “listening to the earth,” I don’t mean anything overly technical. I am a landscape designer, yes—but not an agronomist.
For me, listening means observing what grows naturally, reading the soil through what already thrives there. It means not forcing the earth to fit our aesthetic wishes, but understanding what it can welcome with ease. Every touch of the soil has a cost—not only financial, but ecological. And over time, the earth always returns to itself. That is why I choose plants that belong, watch them quietly, and let them grow along their own path.
In life, I realized that the desire to control often comes from fear. When I felt the urge to force things, it was because I had lost trust—trust in myself, in others, in the unfolding of life. Slowly, I learned to pause, to look inward. The answers did not arrive at once. Listening—truly listening—is a skill I had to learn, with courage, patience, and care. And even now, the journey continues.
I have come to know that listening requires stillness, silence, and presence.
Something shifted when I finally left my role as general manager. I asked myself: “What do you love to do when you don’t have to do anything?” And the answer came clearly: to create with nature.
It was an activity that brought together all the things I had always loved, that had always been a part of me, but that I had never dared to make my life’s work: nature, simplicity, beauty, a passion for art, creativity, deep well-being, ethics, and the ability to understand and organize complex systems.
Landscape design was not just a new beginning. It was the moment when the scattered pieces of my identity found a home. And so, Terra Ascoltata was born: a way of living the garden—and living myself.
