‘The Praça do Império Garden is located between the Jeronimo’s Monastery and the Discoveries Monument and is flanked by the Belém Cultural Centre. The garden was laid out for the 1940 Portuguese World Exhibition, which celebrated both the 800th anniversary of independence and the 300th anniversary of the Restoration. The central feature is an imposing fountain, which is lit up on special occasions, and has coats of arms around its basin. The park also displays 32 coats of arms in the layout of its hedges and flowers and there are four ponds and two sculptural groups depicting mythological horses.’
‘Trees articulate Oxford’s distinctive skyline of spires and domes and as such provide a seasonally changing foreground and frame to the landscape setting. From certain western viewpoints, the sylvan ridgescape of Headington provides a green backdrop to the city. In lower lying land, ribbon belts of trees delineate the two rivers, associated streams, canals and meadows within the boundaries of the city.
Trees enhance and soften the scene by acting as a foil to architecture and this impact can be due to very small numbers or indeed individual specimens. For instance, the Sycamore sandwiched between All Souls and Queen’s College punctuates the long gentle curve of the High Street. Apart from probably being one of the most photographed trees in England, the town planner Thomas Sharp described the tree ‘…as one of the most important in the world: without it, the scene would suffer greatly’.
Source: Oxford City Council website
Impatiens bequaertii
Gaudi planned and directed the construction of the park from 1900 to 1914 for Eusebi Guell for a residential park intended for sixty single- family residences. The project, however, was unsuccessful and the park became city property in 1923. Though never fully completed, it still remains one of Gaudi’s most colorful and playful works.
Park Guell, intended to serve Guell’s private city, became all of Barcelona’s, then the world’s favourite. Gaudi let loose his imagination.
It’s a playground for the mind: visual jokes, like columns that simulate palm-tree trunks, rubble-surfaced arches that grow out of the ground, quilts of ceramic tiles. A graceful gazebo is made of twisted angle iron – cheap to make, looks good, does not lie about its material yet its shape is as softly curved as climbing vines.’ (Park Guell website)
Nigel Boldero aka 'Old School Gardener'
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