On the banks of Lake Como, within the historical walls of Villa Erba, the curtain has just dropped on an experiment that made thousands of visitors reflect on the relationship between man and nature. Orticolario 2025 has chosen to tell Eden not as an orderly and controlled garden, but as a wild and ancestral place, where beauty was born from the absence of human control.
The fifteenth edition of the event dedicated to the culture of the landscape has turned upside down the expectations. No geometric flower beds or perfect borders, but an invitation to look at nature with different eyes, recognizing in its primordial strength a beauty that does not need to be domesticated.
Wild Garden as a philosophical manifesto
The Wild Garden thus becomes a philosophical manifest, space where the sublime dialogue with wonder and where the alleged imperfection reveals a power capable of upsetting, enchanting and seducing. At the center of the event, Dzonot materialized this vision through an immersive installation signed by Jonathan Arnaboldi and Matteo Pellicanò, made thanks to the support of the Banca Popolare di Milano and Stihl Foundation.
A space that hosted cultural meetings, performances and a completely unpublished charity evening, where long convivial tables have transformed dinner into a sensory journey between spontaneous plants and forgotten flavors.
Wild plants return protagonists of our diet
The spontaneous plants were absolute protagonists of this edition. The phytoalimurgia, an ancient practice that recovers the food use of leaves, roots, sprouts and wild berries, has become the red thread capable of connecting gastronomic culture and landscape. For centuries these gifts of nature have nourished humanity, before being forgotten in favor of standardized productions.
Orticolario reported them to the center of attention, inviting to rediscover a more aware way of relating to what the earth spontaneously offers. During the evening Charity, the diners were able to collect and combine halimurgical plants with the menu courses edited by garlic and Oglio, in an experience that made spontaneous and high cuisine raw materials dialogue.
Antonia Klugmann and cuisine as listening to nature
To embody this philosophy was the guest of honor Antonia Klugmann, chef of the L’Argine A Venò restaurant, fresh from Michelin star and maximum awards from the main Italian gastronomic guides. The prize for an advanced gardening 2025 went to her, a recognition that celebrates those who make ethical cuisine and listening to nature a real manifesto.
For Klugmann, the raw material is poetry and responsibility, the non -waste becomes a creative act, and his work becomes a mirror of the season and the territory in which he works. His words resonate as a declaration of intent that goes far beyond the cuisine. Custodian and observer of Vencò, a small ansa near the Judrio river, the chef constantly questions how not to disturb the wild beauty that surrounds it, on how to prevent human intervention unscathed fragile but perfect balance.
The installations that redefine the concept of natural beauty
The installations in the park, evaluated by the creative jury, interpreted this theme with courage and inspiration. All the projects have been able to transcend the conventional idea of perfection to embrace that natural power that does not let itself be harnessed.
To conquer the gold leaf of Lake Como, a prestigious prize created exclusively by the historic artistic glassworks Archimedes of Murano, was the Miretti space “a cheer of regenerating nature” by Flavio Miretti, Brigitta Balestri and Matilde Tonelli, awarded for having transformed the Eden into accessible multisensory ecosystem, capable of translating complexity into immersive experience.
Educate the new generations to a different relationship with the landscape
Thirty thousand visitors, including many children and young people involved in educational paths and interactive activities, have gone through this contemporary Eden, bringing home not only aesthetic suggestions but deep questions. When we stop checking, what do we find out? What beauty escapes us when we claim to dominate every aspect of the landscape? And above all, what can we learn from a nature that does not need us to be perfect?
As Moritz Mantero, president of Orticolario, points out, every element of the event has been designed to combine beauty and awareness, elegance and research, celebrating nature and spreading landscape culture with social sensitivity. A commitment that is renewed year after year and that finds a profound meaning in the purpose of the event: to promote the culture of the landscape and raise funds for local associations engaged in the social.
The lesson we bring home
The Eden of Orticolario 2025 reminds us that the real evolved gardening does not consist in folding nature to our schemes, but in learning to read its language, respecting its rhythms, feeding on it with gratitude. And perhaps, precisely in this reversal of perspective, the seed of a more sustainable and harmonious future is hidden.
7 reasons why Orticolario 2025 on Lake Como will be unforgettable (between magical herbs and a dream cenote)
