Country

San Marino: one ecoregion. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

San Marino sits wholly within the Italian sclerophyllous and semi-deciduous forests, a Mediterranean forest, woodland and scrub ecoregion of about 39,000 square miles running down the Italian peninsula, ranked Nature Imperiled. The name describes a two-part vegetation: evergreen sclerophyllous species with tough, drought-resistant leaves alongside semi-deciduous broadleaf trees that bridge the Mediterranean and temperate worlds. For this small hilltop republic that translates to warm, dry summers and mild, wetter winters, with the classic Mediterranean planting rhythm of autumn establishment and summer restraint. Gardens here do best with drought-adapted evergreens, semi-deciduous oaks and their companions, and summer-dry perennials, and because the surrounding ecoregion is imperiled, favoring its native woodland species is a meaningful choice even at garden scale.