Two years ago I made a pledge that I would plant a tree at Casa Sant Elia for every year of my life…and that’s a lot of trees !!

The last two years have been exceptionally hot in Italy…although we do have air conditioning, which for the environment is not ideal!!

The pledge of planting trees will, I hope, also lessen our carbon footprint.  We already have more than 500 olive trees, which are great CO2 guzzlers, together with around 30 fruit trees.

The trees we plant have to be drought resistant and able to withstand extreme temperature change, together with being a haven for birds and wildlife.

We all have our favourite trees, but thought we would also ask our guests, who stay at Casa Sant Elia for their suggestions. So for every booking we will plant their tree of choice too.

Our first guest tree is a Scandinavian spruce, a suggestion by a lovely Norwegian family, who have been back to Casa Sant Elia four times now, actually it will be five as they return again this year.

Although it has a low leaf area it is evergreen and will produce oxygen throughout most of the year.

The tree looks much smaller than it did at the nursery, always the way!  but hopefully it will grow for a thousand years, as a similar one has in Sweden…and is still growing!

This little tree will be adorned with little twinkling lights during the summer, and can be enjoyed by everyone whilst eating, playing and generally enjoying summer ‘23 at Casa Sant Elia.

And for our Norwegian quests, the tree is for them.

Being a complete romantic, I would like to think that perhaps in 20-30 years time, their grandchildren will wander down the drive, pointing out the tree that was their tree of choice.

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