My search for hidden Venice

It may be defined by its relationship with water, but the iconic Italian city is also home to some of Europe's elusive gardens - escape with Monty as he takes a journey to discover its secluded treasures

To go to Venice in search of gardens might seem to be founded more in hope than expectation. No city is more beautiful or more romantic, but few would stake its claim to fame on horticulture.

There are some public gardens, but space is so short and so hard won that gardens might seem an impossible luxury for most. But spend any time at all beyond the obligatory visit to St Mark's Square and you will catch glimpses of plants in passing and snatches of possible gardens through gateways and doors. There is wisteria reflected in the water as it falls in swags over a wall, a magnolia hedged between two buildings, or ivy capping a wall in green billows.

The signs are elusive and enigmatic, with little clue as to the scale or content of any gardens within - but it is evidence that they are there.

Gardens are essentially rooted in earth and Venice is nothing if not a city of water. However, the two do combine and at times gloriously so.

There are few better ways to start a day than stepping from one's hotel straight into a boat and setting off down the back canals and opening out onto the Grand Canal early on a spring morning to visit gardens. No journey in any city in the world is more beautiful and the gardens are all integrally bound into this beauty rather than being exceptional.

Making gardens

Some of this is to do with the way that Venice's existence depends upon the same contract with nature that every gardener deals with. It is a bargain whereby mankind manipulates and controls the natural world to make something beautiful and useful, but on licence - and that licence can be withdrawn by weather, negligence or misjudgement at any moment.