Guerrilla gardening in Barcelona
May 22nd, 2011Remarkable guerrilla gardening of the old crap Parcs i Jardins flowerbeds in Plaça Catalunya during the 15-M acampada.
Parks of Barcelona
Articles in ‘Parks of Barcelona’
Collserola protected
October 20th, 2010 Lucy has written this excellent summary of the news of Collserola’s protection.
Guinardó park
May 19th, 2010 Guinardó Park is one of my favourite of Bareclona’s off-the-beaten-track parks. More here from Barcelona Metropolitan who describe it as “an overlooked rustic gem in the middle (sic) of Barcelona”
Trees in Barcelona
April 27th, 2009
What Barcelona lacks for in parks and green area, it partly makes up for with its trees, particularly those plants along the city’s streets.
According the Council there are:
- More than 151,000 trees on the city’s streets and avenues. Sant Martí and the Eixample, with 30,788 and 22,090 trees respectively, are the districts with most trees in Barcelona. In the rest of the city -with the exception of Ciutat Vella and Gràcia, which have an urban structure that makes planting difficult- there are approximately 12,000 to 15,000 street-lining trees.
- There are 141 species of street- lining trees in Barcelona. 11 main species represent 77% of the total number of specimens. The most common is the London plane (Platanus x hispanica), with 50,000 specimens. These are followed by the European Hackberry (Celtis australis), with 18,460 specimens and further behind -with between 8,000 and 4,000 specimens – by the Japanese pagodatree (Sophora japonica), the Lombardy poplar (Populus nigra ‘Italica’), the elm (Ulmus pumila), the tipuana (Tipuana tipu), the black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), the bottle tree (Brachtchiton populneus), the chinaberry (Melia azedarach) and, with fewer than 4,000 specimens, the glossy privet (Ligustrum lucidum) and the box elder (Acer negundo). Lots more information here
- There are also some 5,000 palm trees in Barcelona
Allotments in Barcelona
April 27th, 2009
The council has this useful page showing details of allotments in Barcelona. They are aimed at people aged 65 and over and are seriously oversubscribed. Despite the official propoganda the council really haven’t invested enough in allotments. There are 11 sites providing allotments for a few hundred pensioners in the city. They should create more.
Barcelona shacks
April 19th, 2009Most of the shacks built by the waves of immigrants in the 20th century in Barcelona have been demolished or converted, for the better, into more formal, decent housing, but a number of examples still survive in El Carmel, Montjuic and on the edges of Collserola. Many are threatened by bulldozers, but I think the most interesting should be protected as part of the city’s heritage and because they make the edges of the parks where many of them are sited more interesting. These ones below were taken in the Parc de la Creueta del Coll, El Carmel, and show a clear influence of southern Spanish rural architecture. I love the rural air and the chaos. Photos by Mónica.
Las cabras del Turó de la Rovira
April 14th, 2009We came across this remarkable scene of Rafael and his flock of six goats in the Turó de la Rovira park, El Carmel last Sunday. The police have told him officially to remove his animals but seem to be turning a blind eye as long as he keeps them on this wilder side of the park. Photos by Mónica.
