Tag Archives: Garden

Oct10

A tour of the Liberties

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Saturday, 17-Aug-2024


I’ve moved into my new apartment in Dublin.

I am now a resident of Dublin 8, specifically an area known as The Liberties.

It’s a beautiful section of the city – close to the central city, an 8min bike ride from Trinity, and a short walk from pretty much everything I could ask for. The view out my window is unequivocally Dublin – The Guinness Brewery rises to one side, St Patrick’s Cathedral to the other, and the John’s Lane Church (Church of St Augustine and St John) soars right in the middle.

It’s beautiful, and I was ecstatic to hear that the community manager for my apartment would be organizing a walking tour of the neighborhood. I signed up immediately.


I knew I was a gentrifier, since towering steel and glass monstrosity, but I didn’t quite realize the scope of the situation until our guide started explaining it all to us. The Liberties is an old part of Dublin, and had historically been a fairly low income area… It’s not a bad, or dangerous, neighborhood by any means, but it’s also not a thriving or wealthy neighborhood.

Our guide walked us through the town – showing us some amazing landmarks, some challenging parts of history, and some very interesting little tidbits about the town.

It all crystallized into a clear picture to me – this was a community, nothing like what I’d left behind in Oregon. As we walked, our guide’s family members popped out their doors or windows to say hi. His Grandma waved from a balcony, and his niece and nephew swept by on their bikes. Friends came out to welcome us, and schoolkids that he’d taught shouted greetings from the other side of the street.

It was vibrant, and lived in, and growing.

I can’t wait to get to know it better.

A few standout things to mention:
– We saw the oldest fruit tree in Ireland! A pear tree, over 200 years old.
– We walked through a community park, brand new, that the people of the Liberties had been lobbying for for years, and had finally gotten approved.
– We had the opportunity to see a small community test garden, used to help bring schoolkids out of the city and into a small oasis of growing things
– Our guide is a beekeeper, who runs a series of 50+ hives throughout Dublin, ensuring the pollinator population remains strong

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Liberties,_Dublin

Jul14

The Warsaw University library gardens

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Thursday, 20-June-2024


I adore post-apocalyptic citycapes.

I mean, I adore landscapes in general. And even some contemporary cityscapes. But cityscapes of crumbling infrastructure, with plants reclaiming the world of iron, glass, and cement… Now that’s just a special kind of beautiful.

That’s actually the look that I aim for with my gardens, interestingly enough. “Plants reclaiming civilization” is the goal – that’s why I love rusted wrought iron, shattered ceramics, and crawling vines so much.



As I was exploring Warsaw, just wandering about and appreciating the calm and opportunity to walk without a goal, I saw a garden in the distance. A glass dome, specifically, with vines crawling up around it. It called to me, and I answered by curving my path and heading into the garden surrounding it.

I couldn’t have imagined just how amazing this garden would be… nor that it was actually part of the University of Warsaw!


It turns out – I first saw the University Library a bit earlier on my walk – the front facade is… well, it’s hard to describe, except that I feel like this is what the Library of Alexandria should have looked like. I’ll let my camera do the talking, here. You know what? I’ll just step back and let the camera paint you, my dear readers, a picture of the entire landscape:

Jul1

A walk through Kadrioru Park

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A walk through Kadrioru Park

Friday, 07-June-2024


I really liked Tallinn. I bet I’d really like the rest of Estonia too, especially what I’ve heard of the forests and wild places, but for now I can definitely say that I really liked Tallinn.

I’m making a point to visit a lot of awesome places on this adventure, but I’m also making a point to go with the flow, and let myself smell the roses on the trails I set myself on. Kadrioru Park was a good example of succeeding in that goal – I was originally aiming for the Kumu Art Museum, but had to walk through Kadrioru to get there…

Which meant that I spent a few hours wandering an absolutely glorious city park!


The park is built around a massive palace built by Czar Peter the Great, and so it was this really interesting combination of a palace garden and a public park. There were causeways with huge flowing streams, flower gardens and broad walkways that were clearly intended for nobility to stroll around… but there were also semi-wild sections where you could be forgiven for almost forgetting that you were in the capital city.

Definitely a lovely park, and an excellent diversion on my way to the art museum!


(Ironic note – while writing this post, I learned that the palace build by Czar Peter the Great now houses it’s own art museum! So… I got distracted by an art museum on my way to an art museum. But didn’t go into the art museum, because I was going to the art museum. Ohh the trials and tribulations of Ben)