Gardens that you would not expect to find in the midst of urban chaos
Imagine that you are lost in the middle of a city that you do not know, full of gray and asphalt. And suddenly, like an oasis, a garden as green as it is unexpected appears in the middle of nowhere, offering you a unique corner to regain peace.
That feeling is what you want to recreate _Green Escapes, The Guide To Secret Urban Gardens_ (Phaidon, 2018), the first urban guide to secret gardens. It includes some 260 of these paradises -all can be visited- in more than 150 cities around the world, as a treasure map of unknown and exuberant spaces. Yes, because in Green Escapes you will not find the gardens of Versailles, nor those of the Generalife, but spaces intimate, tempting and with character but much less crowded than its famous counterparts. In fact, they are often unknown even to locals.
The Gardens of Estufa Fria, in Lisbon
"For a long time, I enjoyed visiting the great famous gardens, those that are on the outskirts, but I also love finding little hidden oases when I visit cities," says Toby Musgrave, author of the book. "I was surprised that these little green getaways, though less famous, were just as lovely than their older cousins, and that they also had interesting stories to tell. So, I decided that I would be the one to tell them so that others could also enjoy them."
In this way, the spaces that we find in the book are, in a third part, discoveries of Musgrove himself, a recognized authority in the history of gardens with several books published on the subject. The rest have been recommended to him, and others he has researched, as he explains, on "peculiar" websites.
Butterfly Garden in Singapore
Your favourites? It is very difficult for him to choose, but the most evocative are those of the kolkata cemetery (in India), the Wendy's Secret Garden (in Sidney) and certain gardens of the Carmens of Granada. Although there are more Spanish corners in the book. For example, him Garden of the Prince of Anglona , in Madrid, or the Gardens of Monforte , in Valencia.
Also, he was very surprised Food Roof Garden in St. Louis (USA), and the Skip Garden in London, because in both, he says, you eat very well. Although without a doubt the most extraordinary -and that they all are, says Musgrove- were the Addison Walk in Oxford -because of its unexpected stillness and nature- and that of the National Conservatory of Mexico City . What will be yours...?