Encircling the Caruana Galizia’s hilltop home like beautiful bastions in bloom, the garden protected the house and its inhabitants from the unrelenting ugliness that has usurped the island of Malta.

I was fortunate to have spent a large part of my childhood in that garden. A haven where I grew and played with the Caruana Galizia brothers and the assortment of friends that each brother brought along.

Long and hot summer days sheltering under the cool shade of an olive tree, drinking iced teas. Cold and wet winter days trekking through muddy fields, battling imaginary foes. Sunny Mediterranean Springs and autumns spent building go-carts and climbing mulberry trees. A paradise never to be lost.

Daphne wrote in a blog post:

"I love gardens: mysterious, magical gardens full of nooks and crannies, the equivalent of rambling old houses packed with rackety furniture and old curios brought back by antecedents from their peregrinations, gardens that are collections of plants of all kinds, tall and small, wild and tame, big-leafed and spiked, tangle-branched and swooping.”

And the Garden of Dar Riħana is just that; wild and mysterious and magical. Full of nooks and crannies packed with curios that filled our childhood with beauty and adventure.

The Malta Labour Party will be relegated to the dustbin of history, only to be remembered as greedy charlatans who enabled the murder of a journalist and destroyed Malta. And this is what Daphne’s detractors fail to understand, Daphne loved Malta more than they ever will. 

As the island is engulfed by dust and concrete, the flowers planted by Daphne in her garden continue to bloom.