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The Mossèn Costa i Llobera Gardens offer a spectacular panoramic view of the city’s coastline and port. The refurbishment they recently underwent has made a considerable improvement to the central access point, previously used as a service entrance, with two new gates for visitors.
The gardens are a privileged outdoor classroom that allows visitors to discover the evolutionary strategies of succulent plants, which have created varieties specialising in low water consumption.
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History
The Jardins Costa i Llobera are the result of a joint project by the architect Joaquim Maria Casamor and the gardening-school teacher, professional and expert in succulent plants, Joan Pañella. Work had already been going on for several years to adapt these species to the city. When the option of smartening up the part of Montjuïc that is now the site of the gardens was being considered, there was already an important collection of species originating from the Canary Islands, Andalusia and nurseries of other Mediterranean cities. Several plants had also come from the Pallanca collection in Italy.
The Mossèn Costa i Llobera Gardens were officially opened in March 1970 but have gone through a long process of recovery, remodelling and restoration ever since. Thanks to structural consolidation and the replanting of a good number of plants damaged by the cold, the gardens are now back to their original splendour.
They offer a collection that is unique in the world: 3.16 hectares for a journey through some of the most exotic species found on the planet, not just in subdesert, desert and tropical areas but also in high mountain regions too.
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Landscaping and Design
In 1987 a New York Times journalist ranked the Jardins de Mossèn Costa i Llobera among the top ten of the world’s best gardens. The article also mentioned the journalist’s feeling of solitude during the visit to this exquisite collection of cacti and succulent plants. And 1987 had not exactly been a good year for this unique collection of rare botanical specimens: the winter had brought terrible frost, just when the collection had recovered from the impact of the previous severe frost in the winter of 1985. Climatic setbacks that led to a significant reduction in the number of species. When the gardens opened at the start of the 1970s, some 800 different species were growing there. During the winter of 1985 the city recorded temperatures of six degrees below zero, continuously, for nearly a week. The second frost, in 1987, proved a further blow, this time fatal, to many of the plants there, reducing the varieties by almost 40%. It also caused the sudden deaths of many of the plants replanted after the first frost two years before. And despite this hardly flattering scenario, the gardens still won acclaim as one of the best on the planet.
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- Phone number
- Tel.: 010
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- Titularity
- Public center
- Address:
- Ctra Miramar, 38
- Districte:
- Sants-Montjuïc
- Neighborhood:
- el Poble-sec
- City:
- Barcelona
Timetable
Periode | Dies | Hores |
---|---|---|
Horari d'hivern de l'1 de novembre al 31 de març |
Cada dia | de 08.00 h a 19.00 h |
Horari d'estiu de l'1 d'abril al 31 d'octubre |
de 08.00 h a 21.00 h |
aproximada, en funció de
l'horari solar (tanquen
quan es fa fosc, al capvespre)