You have stopped at a courtyard gate in a Provençal village. You have eaten breakfast on a terrace in Tuscany, surrounded by cypress and gravel and warm old stone. You came home, bought the lavender and the olive in its pot, and the garden never felt the way the photograph did.
That gap is what our new Summer 2026 issue is about.
The Mediterranean courtyard isn’t a style.
It’s a set of principles.
Once you understand them, you can recreate the feeling almost anywhere, even where the winters are real.
“You can get closer than you think.” — David Chicoine
Inside this issue
You’ll discover:
- Why Mediterranean courtyards feel timeless, regardless of country
- The five design principles every memorable courtyard shares
- How French, Italian, Spanish, Moroccan, and Greek gardens express those principles differently
- What those ideas look like in real gardens
- Which plants create the feeling—and what to grow instead when your climate won’t cooperate
The Mediterranean Plant Guide
The plants that carry the feeling—and their cold-climate alternatives.
Also inside
- A conversation with Provence photographer David Chicoine on living inside the gardens the rest of us admire from a distance.
- Diane Samways on why the floor is the first decision in a garden, not the last.
- A second Designer’s Eye exploring the courtyard the internet wanted to tear up—and why the gravel was the point all along.
- Four remarkable gardens, from a Moroccan-inspired courtyard in London to an orchard planted on three flat acres in Connecticut.
- A plant section that answers a different question: not what to plant, but what each plant is actually doing.
Issue No. 03 • The Mediterranean Courtyard
Every issue of Alcove begins with a place people remember.
This season, it’s the Mediterranean courtyard.
Start reading below
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