Landmark Buenos Aires, Argentina
Cats in The Botanical Garden
For decades the Jardín Botánico in Palermo was the most famous cat garden in South America, with hundreds of abandoned cats among the palms. Then the city and the volunteers found them homes. What is left, why, and where Buenos Aires keeps its cats now.
Where to find cats in The Botanical Garden: The Jardín Botánico Carlos Thays in Palermo, Buenos Aires, by Plaza Italia, and the plazas of Palermo and Recoleta around it. When: Late afternoon, when the garden is cool and the few remaining cats come out. October to April; the garden closes at dusk. Why here: The honest version of a famous cat garden, and what a city did about it.
The short version
- Where
- The Jardín Botánico Carlos Thays in Palermo, Buenos Aires, by Plaza Italia, and the plazas of Palermo and Recoleta around it
- When
- Late afternoon, when the garden is cool and the few remaining cats come out. October to April; the garden closes at dusk
- How long
- An hour in the garden. An afternoon with Palermo’s plazas and Recoleta
- What it costs
- Free. The garden asks nothing; the volunteers who rehomed the cats take donations
- Why here
- The honest version of a famous cat garden, and what a city did about it
What to bring
- The right expectationsThe hundreds of cats in the old photographs are mostly gone, adopted out from 2013 on. A handful remain. This page tells you where the rest of the city’s cats are.
- The late afternoonThe garden is shaded and quiet after four, and the remaining cats come out onto the paths.
- Legs for PalermoThe garden, the zoo that became an eco-park, the plazas and Recoleta are all walkable from Plaza Italia.
- Pesos for a caféPalermo Soho is around the corner and the cafés have their own cats.
Why there are cats everywhere
Buenos Aires used to leave its unwanted cats at the Botanical Garden. By the two-thousands there were hundreds, and the city decided to do something kinder than nothing.
The Jardín Botánico was laid out by Carlos Thays, the French landscape architect who designed most of the city’s parks, and opened in 1898: seven hectares of palms, greenhouses, statues and paths in the middle of Palermo. At some point in the twentieth century it became the place porteños left cats they could not keep, and because the gardeners fed them and the garden was fenced and quiet, the cats stayed and multiplied. By the early two-thousands there were several hundred, on the benches and the fountain rims and under every tree, and the garden was as famous for them as for the plants.
It was not good for the cats or the garden. They were unneutered, sick in numbers, and the garden was a dumping ground. From 2013 the city, with a volunteer group, began a sustained programme: trapping, neutering, treating and, above all, adopting the cats out, with weekend adoption days at the gate that became a Palermo institution. Over a few years the colony went from hundreds to a few dozen to a handful, and the photographs on this page, of black cats by the fountain and a crowd on the pavement by the railings, are from the years before that.
So the garden is a plant garden again, with a few old cats who were never going to be adopted and a fountain that used to be a cat’s bath. The city’s cats are elsewhere: on the plazas of Palermo, around the cafés of Soho, and, most famously, at Recoleta Cemetery, which has its own page on this site and its own, much smaller, story. The garden is worth an hour for what it was and for the palms.
The walk
The garden from the Plaza Italia gate, the plazas of Palermo beside it, and a bus or a long walk to Recoleta for the other colony. An afternoon.
- From Ezeiza airportBus or taxi to Palermo60 minThe Tienda León bus to the centre, then the metro; or a remise booked inside the terminal.
- From Anywhere on Line DMetro to Plaza Italia15 minThe garden gate is across the plaza from the station.
- From RecoletaBus along Avenida Las Heras, or walk30 minThe cemetery cats and the garden cats are a half-hour apart. Do both.
Plaza Italia
The busy roundabout with Garibaldi on his horse, the metro station, and the garden gate on the far side. The pavement cats in the photograph on this page were on the railings of the parks around here.
By the railings, in the years of plenty. One stretching, four supervising.eks, CC BY-SA 2.0 The Botanical Garden
Through the gate into Thays’s palms and greenhouses. Walk to the central fountain, sit, and wait: the remaining cats are old, slow and come out in the shade. The gardeners will tell you their names.
One of the remaining residents. Old, named, and staying.wallygrom, CC BY-SA 2.0 Palermo’s plazas and cafés
Out the other side into Palermo Soho, the plazas and the café terraces, where the neighbourhood’s cats now are: on the chairs, under the tables, and fed by the waiters.
Watching you, as the photographer titled it. Palermo does that.i-nacho, CC BY-SA 2.0
Same numbers as the list. Worth keeping open on your phone.
The cats you will meet
A handful of old cats in a garden that once had hundreds: neutered, named, fed by the gardeners, and left in peace because nobody would adopt a fifteen-year-old. Plus the plaza and café cats of Palermo, who are the city’s cats now.
Garden survivors
Old, slow, by the fountain in the shade.
The ones who stayed. The gardeners know them.
Plaza cats
On the railings and benches of Palermo.
Fed by the neighbourhood. The successors.
Café cats
On the terrace chairs of Soho.
Order a cortado and share the chair.
Everybody says The Botanical Garden is full of cats.
Actually It was, and every old blog post says so. The city and the volunteers adopted them out from 2013 and the garden now has a few elderly residents. Go for the palms, find one or two, and understand that fewer was the kindness.
How not to be the annoying one
- Do not leave a cat here. That is how the problem started and the gates are watched.
- Do not feed in the garden. The gardeners do, for the few that remain.
- The garden closes at dusk. The cats stay in; you do not.
- If you want a cat, the volunteers still run adoption days across the city. Ask at the gate.
- Recoleta Cemetery is the other colony, and a cemetery. Quiet there.
