It’s easy to miss such gardens amid London’s sensory overload, even for locals living in their easy reach. London’s Vauxhall neighborhood, for instance, is full of rollicking after-hours clubs and traffic-choked streets and bridges. Seek out relief in Bonnington Square Garden, a ragtag oasis of trees, vines, and flowering shrubs in a closed-off square of Victorian townhouses. This is a true diamond in the rough. Known in the 1970s as a warren for hippies and squatters, Bonnington Square reflects its eccentric past, planted as it is with a tangle of mimosa, beech, and mulberry trees as well as lavender, giant ferns, low-growing palms—and the appropriately vegan Bonnington Café.

via London’s Secret Gardens | Travel | Smithsonian Magazine.