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“In spite of
feeling like a citizen of the world I was deeply
rooted to my San Isidrian cliffs,” Victoria
Ocampo wrote in 1976, recalling the garden at the
Villa Ocampo, her daily strolls along the paths
perfumed by honeysuckle, and the shade of the trees
under which she read in tranquility. Like the house,
the plan for the gardens was laid out by Don Manuel
Ocampo. At that time, the garden stretched from
the Avenida Libertador all the way to the Rio de
la Plata. These leafy green grounds — originally
15 hectares and today 10,500 square meters —
served as inspiration for poets and musicians, but
most importantly, was the space in which Victoria
grew up. In the years of her childhood a portion
of the gardens was transformed into a paradise of
flora planted by Victoria herself, who could always
been seen collecting flowers to place in the lapel
of her tailored suits. Along the wall there grew
majestic eucalyptus and magnolias, a cedron tree
whose small citrus fruits were used by Victoria’s
sister Angelica to prepare tea, jasmine plants,
and a gardenia with daisy-like and richly perfumed
blossoms, which was Victoria’s pride and joy.
Before Victoria moved back to the Villa Ocampo permanently,
she would often bring home flowers from the gardenia,
whose stems she wrapped in wet cotton, to the apartment
she shared with Julian Martinez. She writes: “I
would arrive home, triumphantly, with this treasure.
And soon all the rooms would smell like the garden.”
The imperial staircase of the Villa Ocampo links
a rear gallery of balustrades and columns with the
gardens that extend from the house to the steep
banks of the river. In the center of this gallery
a circular fountain is positioned on the axis of
the staircase; from it streams water with the patience
of mid-afternoon. Trees, shrubs, and small plants
surround the house, as well as a marble statue depicting
the figure of a woman, and a forged-iron well. Toward
the east and bordering the river is an octagonal
cement gazebo, with columns and railings shaped
to resemble tree trucks. Victoria grew up with this
landscape at her fingertips: “On my cliffs
in San Isidro the river was a prolongation of something
else: of the grass, of the earth; a prolongation
of my eyes, of myself…” she wrote in
1965 in the daily La Prensa.
When her father passed away, Victoria inherited
the Villa Ocampo and dedicated herself to its renovation.
She got rid of the tennis court and replaced the
brick underfoot with thick gravel. She planted native
species of plants, favoring those with white flowers
and rich aromas, and fruit trees. Two Santa Ritas
were cultivated in the rear gallery and one alongside
the house. The dahlias were objects of her pride:
when Victoria would ask her visitors: “Have
you ever seen anything like these in any other garden?”
no one ever had the courage to respond affirmatively.
Today, the carriage path that once ran along the
riverbank is interrupted by a street; with time
it has grown to create a green tunnel with bits
of light filtering through the branches. This was
the natural paradise in which Victoria was raised,
and during her voyages to Europe it touched in her
a certain chord of memory: “what nostalgia!
What is the use of traveling if inside one carries
the seed of all the beauty in the world?…
when I remember that there it is summer, that the
garden is teeming with flowers, that there are peaches
and the blue sky, I feel disgraced, banished.”
Victoria’s writing is full of references to
her love of and genuine affinity for the natural
world.
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