Habrorea 2024, in Livorno the excellences of the international floriculture market

The 2024 edition of Harborea will be dedicated to the fruits of the earth, the event that has been bringing the innovations and excellences of the international floriculture market to Livorno for 13 years. Organized by Garden Club Livorno and the Municipality of Livorno, Harborea has experienced increasing success in recent years, attracting over 10,000 visitors, many of whom come from outside the city. This year’s theme “Different fruits, colorful flowers” is a quote from the Canticle of Creatures, in which St. Francis of Assisi celebrates the beauty and variety of creation.
The event will take place, as usual, in the park of Villa Mimbelli, home of the Civic Museum “G. Fattori”, which will be open continuously from 10 am to 7 pm for the occasion. By presenting the entrance ticket to Harborea, you will also be entitled to a discount on the entrance ticket to the Fattori Museum and the City Museum.
This year, the event will open its doors at 11:00 on Friday, October 11 and close on Sunday, October 13 at 7:30 pm. In the early afternoon of Friday, at 2:45 pm, there will be the traditional award ceremony for the exhibitors with the participation of the jury and Mayor Luca Salvetti.

THE EXHIBITORS
The chosen theme for the 2024 edition is the fruits of the Earth: the garden as an element not only of beauty but also of sustainability and well-being. Throughout the event, there will be an exhibition of fruits of the Earth and during the meetings at the Literary Café, there will be discussions about the interaction between the land and man and the joy derived from cultivating and consuming the products of one’s own gardens or terraces. The emphasis on this theme has also led to small changes in the choice of stands. Out of a total of around 90 exhibitors, 15 will be present for the first time at Harborea, including some from Livorno and Tuscany. There will be more fruit trees, olive trees, citrus fruits, red fruits, edible plants, collections of aromatic plants, and plant-derived foods such as spices, oil, ancient grain flours, rice, chocolate, beer, and licorice. Among the novelties, there will also be an exhibitor of Australian and South African flora, a type of vegetation that develops in climatic conditions very similar to ours and can adapt well to Mediterranean gardens. There will also be garden furniture and accessories, maintenance equipment, organic fertilizers, thematic books, water purifiers, leaf and flower-printed organic textiles, and some previews of Christmas, but most of the exhibitors will be related to plants, so ample space will be given to roses, hydrangeas, camellias, azaleas, climbing plants, hibiscus, and pomegranates, flowering salvias, irises, all perennial herbs, and cyclamens which, together with exotic flora, represent a significant group of species suitable for cultivation in our territories because the event aims to maintain a primarily scientific, informative, and knowledge-oriented character of the plant world.

LITERARY CAFÉ
At the Literary Café of Harborea, curated this year as well by Silvia Menicagli, events will focus on the importance of the relationship between man and nature. Starting from rediscovering the plants of the Bible up to what has always sustained man: medicinal plants like sage, wild herbs, wine, and oil. The first appointment is scheduled for Friday, October 11 at 4:30 pm with the writer Marilena Roversi Flury in a talk entitled “The Bible’s vegetable garden: discovering ancient and endangered fruits and vegetables”. On Saturday, October 12, the day starts at 11:00 am with the interventions of Mariarosa Castelletti and Maurizio Lunardon, authors of “The tomato and its big family” (Ed. ADIPA 2021). On Saturday afternoon at 3:00 pm Davide Picchi from the nursery “La casina di Lorenzo” in Capannori (LU) will talk about wild herbs and their collection (foraging). At 3:45 pm, the professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Pisa, Marco Macchia, will take us on a discovery of nutraceuticals, studying the therapeutic or preventive properties of foods. Following at 5:30 pm, the meeting with Cecilia Tessieri Rabassi, the world’s first maître chocolatier, who will talk about how cocoa becomes chocolate. On Sunday, October 13, the day starts at 11:00 am with the architect and landscapist Elia Renzi in a talk dedicated to the iris, “flower symbol of Florence made famous in the world thanks to Livorno”. At 11:45 am, there will be a discussion on why “Oil is a serious matter” with Fausto Borella, food and wine critic, and founder of the Maestro d’olio Academy. At 3:00 pm, the focus will be on salvias of all kinds with Marco Licheri from the nursery “Le essenze di Lea” in Gennarino (LU) and at 5:00 pm, the enologist specialized in biodynamic agriculture Saverio Petrilli will be a guest to talk about “Why working the land makes you smile: the connection between biodynamics and happiness”. The event will close on Sunday at 6:00 pm with the award ceremony of the “Flowered painting” competition, directed and conceived by Maisi Gozzi Razzauti and Stefania D’Alesio: “Flowers as works of art, flowered paintings created by the SIAF composition school in a journey through Art and History of floral decoration from the Renaissance to the twentieth century”. Visitors will be able to express their preferences and compete for the award for the most beautiful painting. The presentations at the Literary Café will be brightened by floral demonstrations created by Maisi Gozzi Razzauti, featuring tomatoes, aromatic herbs, and recipes from Mediterranean cuisine, as well as themed readings by Emanuele Gamba.

WORKSHOPS FOR CHILDREN AND ADULTS
This year too, there will be workshops for children to learn the art of gardening from a young age. In the Garden Club pavilion, on Saturday and Sunday, there will be the traditional “Floral decoration course” (at 11:00 am) and “Small galenic laboratory” (at 4:30 pm), where they will prepare a spray and a syrup. At the LIPU stand (stand no.77), environmental education workshops “Play with us” will be offered throughout the three days. The Mediterranean Natural History Museum proposes “Nature between sea and land” (stand no.22) and the Livornese Botanical Group “Four steps to discover plants” (stand no.21). There will also be workshops dedicated to building houses for insects and the path from seed to flower (stand no.81), weaving marsh herbs (stand no.56), sowing medicinal plants (stand no.69), rustic weaving according to the Tuscan tradition (stand no.16), a botanical painting course with the painter and illustrator Pamela Marinelli (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 3:30 pm), and many more.
Adults, on the other hand, can try their hand at making kokedama (stand no.4), participate in an oil tasting guided by Fausto Borrella (Sunday at 3:15 pm – Garden Club pavilion), try creams, perfumes, and ointments made with wild-gathered plants (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 3:00 pm at stand no. 11), learn to cultivate orchids (Saturday and Sunday at 11:00 am at stand 5), roses (Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 pm and 4:30 pm at stand no. 38) and hydrangeas (stand no.49). Thanks to AAMPS/RETIAMBIENTE, this year too, the soil from the treatment of organic waste produced in Livorno will be given as a gift, and thanks to ASA, filtered water can be drunk at point no.34.

The complete list of Literary Café events and workshops is published on the official Harborea website: https://harborea.it/