I have a few books and have recently been revisiting one titled Italian Gardens by Georgina Masson that I accidentally found in an antique store. I enjoy reading about some of the history that lead to the creation of the early gardens. I, also, have books by Hobhouse and Attice.

What I would like to know is what would help to make this a most memorable trip? Learn to speak some Italian comes to mind. My experience is that most places in the world seem to have plenty of English speaking people but I guess this would still be a big help.

What else?

georgina Masson is a bible for me, because is full of old pictures of the gardens. Unfortunatly most of them are now unmaintained or simply vanished. If you are interrested in history of gardens I advice The Oxford companion to gardens by Geoffrey & susan Jellicoe try to find in english books of rosario Assunto (art historian) or Alessandro tagliolini.
Others sources are the guide books :
the memorable Italian villas and their gardens by edith Wharton
A tour of italian gardens by judith Chatfield and Italian gardens by Alex Ramsay
The next is a mix between guide book and history book its Italian villas and gardens by Paul Van der Ree.
To prepar your next trip in Italy speaking few of Italian is enough for fun. Most of the touristic places are english spoken. For instance most of the public gardens have a bookstore with english version leaflets.
I am not sure that summer would be the best time to visit italians gardens, I should advice april to june or september. The naturalistic flora and flowers colours in the gardens are various from North Lombardy to the south Sicily.
Hope this would help you.

Enjoy your trip.AND SORRY TO HAVE BEEN SO LONG

SHABDR

Italy is quite a large country, so you will first have to decide which parts of it you want to visit, and make a list of the gardens you want to see.

Knowledge of basic Italian would certainly help you during your visits, should you want any questions answered, or be looking for a particular plant. Even if you just did a basic course in Italian, or teach yourself from a small book, that would definitely be a great help.

It is usually only the young Italians who would have a smattering of English in the larger cities, but once you go into the countryside (where you will probably be going to visit the gardens) it would be very difficult to find anyone with even basic English.

Trust me, I was a foreigner married to an Italian, lived in Rome for ten years, and I can tell you that until I went and took a course in Italian I was really miserable and frustrated as I could not get by at all, when I was on my own.

Have a grand trip!