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 garden looks like a style — lavender, terracotta, pale stone. It is actually a set of principles. And once you understand them, you can build the feeling anywhere you happen to garden, even where the winters are real.
“You can get closer than you think.” — David Chicoine
Inside, we decode the five elements every Mediterranean courtyard shares — enclosure, hard surface, focal point, vertical structure, fragrance — and the five traditions that express them differently: French Provençal, Italian terrace, Spanish and Andalusian, Moroccan riad, and Greek island. Each one broken down for what it actually does, and how to bring it home.
Read the full issue below.
PLUS: a conversation with Provence photographer David Chicoine on living inside the gardens the rest of us admire from a distance. Diane Samways on the ground plane, and why the floor is the first decision in a garden, not the last. A second Designer’s Eye on the courtyard the internet wanted to tear up — and why the gravel was the point all along. Four real gardens, from a Moroccan-influenced courtyard in London to an orchard planted on three flat acres in Connecticut, each one a study in what makes a space worth returning to. And a plant section that answers the question no one else does: not what to plant, but what each plant is actually doing — and what to grow instead when your winters are real.
Start reading below.
Not sure where to start? Begin with the free guide at alcovemagazine.com.
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