Tag Archives: Tangier Gardens

Urban Green…600 years ago?

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Who started it?

If you Google Tangier Gardens you will find books filled with fine photos of gentrified medina homes in Marrakech, Fes, Tangier, Rabat…

CJ’s head was spinning. His term abroad study landed him in Tangier. The cross-cultural stuff came at him fast and furious. He was on a landscape journey–without end.

CJ was born in the USA but Tangier was not the USA. Back home the suburbs were all green, every house had front and backyard gardens and downtowns, every street was lined with trees and city parks were aplenty. Frederick Law Olmsted’s legacy was as far as the eye could see. But that was home.

Tangier, the medina, the kasba a town for centuries and CJ could not find one tree or even one plant.

Here is what he found–nothing–classic hardscape-only urban realm–not even a weed pushing through paving cracks. Green AWOL. But population density as high as NY City. CJ wondered is it a muslim thing–from the Koran, the Hadith–or just local Cherifs? It was another of the cultural mysteries he encountered. They kept coming like address cards in a full rollodex.

But he did learn some history of public water delivery. And CJ did learn that the urban green was hidden in the private courtyards of every riad in the medina. He found a ’smart urban green’, a small urban green, a manageable urban green, protected, quiet, hidden from public noise, hidden from public view.

CJ’s journey to discovery. Discovery? Who is CJ?

But if you are really into Tangier Gardens, the book will be launched in early 2022, sign up today–> here for details and discounts.

CJ needs help, where can he find it?

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PLANT PORTALS

Who is CJ?

He is the protagonist in the series, The Landscape Architect.

The Landscape Architect is the title of a series of fictional autobiographies. These are CJ’s autobiographies. In this series, CJ reveals the twists and turns in the development of his career as a professional landscape architect via his interactions with cultures, landscapes, gardens and plants of the world—where the unexpected and downright strange become daily facts of life.

Tangier Gardens is the debut novel in that series.

When you dig into Tangier Gardens, you will find a contemporary coming of age action novel about CJ (Christopher Janus), who like us is facing a broad range of distressing challenges.

CJ needs a break. He has been busting his hump full time six years at university with one more class till graduation.

He wanted just a few moments of repose before getting on with his career.

Didn’t happen. We all sadly know that story. But how did CJ deal with it? Tangier Gardens is that story.

CJ, studying landscape architecture, is into pedestrian towns and warm sandy beaches. For his last class, a term abroad design study, he’s on his way to Tangier, a town with sandy beaches on the Med and a historical pedestrian district, the medina. 

However, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar and landing in Tangier immediately upsets his planned easy observe-and-check-the-box design study. He is thrown off balance and he has to start all over from scratch–no more easy study.

With Andalusian legacies, languorous gardens, Moroccan markets and ancient medinas, Tangier Gardens brings Mediterranean life to the armchair traveler.

If you are: 

-A nature lover, into urban gardening or a landscape architecture aficionado;

-Curious about all things green–the environment, plants, gardens, landscape;

-Intrigued about the North African multi-cultural, mystical history of people and plants, then

–Tangier Gardens IS A MUST.

Tangier Gardens is my debut novel in the series The Landscape Architect. Is the landscape CJ’s worst enemy or is he his own worst enemy? Can he design his way out of this conundrum? Could coming of age be more awkward?