........I WISH WE HAD THESE IN OUR YARD ! ! ....Settimio with his friend Marco again, who had come to see us and Settimio's family one afternoon....too bad we all couldn't convince him to stay for dinner! He had done so much for us in Rome, wouldn't even let us take him out for dinner, and now missed one of Romana's meals too, which was ever so "delizioso". But he wanted to get back to his wife who was waiting for him in Rome. The two guys are standing next to that really cool plant I loved so much!





Their yard was huge, with many varieties of trees, ranging from the ordinary (like the pine trees in our own backyard in Wisconsin) to the exotic (like you find in Florida & California), and many different FRUIT TREES, including lemon, orange, lime, apple, nut, etc., and some I've never heard of before! I think these are pomogranates, (in Italian, "Melagrana") that Silvia is holding, but I wish I got the name of that incredibly cool plant with the big white ball in the middle of it. Sonia wanted to take some seeds to plant in Florida, where it would surely grow, but she didn't. I do know that the final plant or tree in this series of photos from their yard is called "FICO D'INDIA"- (Indian Fig Tree). Settimio and I took at least 25 photos of the garden alone, but I narrowed it down to just a few, to show you the most unusual plants and trees that coexisted all in one garden. And they planted them all by themselves 10 years ago, when they purchased the house and land. The only thing missing in this huge & beautiful yard is thick green grass, since they planted a type of "crab grass" common in Italy and Florida, which I understand is more resistant to the hot sun in climates such as those. That's Silvia with me below...