in full bloom

Over the past three years, hotelier Fabrizio Ruspoli has turned an old olive farm south of Marrakech into the High Atlas's most intoxicating garden retreat

- Clare Coulson

A winding stone path leads down to a long, shady iron pergola draped in wisteria and twisting jasmine, where Prince Fabrizio Ruspoli di Poggio Suasa, the creative force behind all this romance, is sipping a pink martini. Elegant and dashingly handsome, Ruspoli casts an eye over Olinto Atlas Mountain Retreat, his eight-acre (and expanding) garden estate. Shimmering olive trees underplanted with fragrant floriferous white Atlas rose bushes encircle an expansive pool. A walkway below us cuts through swaying, luminous Pennisetum grasses punctuated by sculptural giant agaves and supersize succulents.

As we begin to wander, drinks in hand, Ruspoli points out a building in the process of being repainted; the celadon green he'd originally chosen turned out not to be precisely the shade he had envisioned. It's this sort of attention to detail, along with flawless taste, that has turned his dream into a living and growing idyll.

Olinto's architecture incorporates traditional kasbah features like corner towers; the on-site gardens provide ingredients for many of the restaurant's dishes

I've come to this High Atlas retreat in Marigha, an hour south of Marrakech, after a tip from Polly Nicholson, an author and specialist in historic tulips.

A month earlier she had messaged me excitedly during her stay to tell me that interesting horticultural goings-on were afoot here. But just three years ago, this landscape, set against the snowcapped peaks of Toubkal National Park, was nothing more than a dusty olive tree farm.