LANdscAPiNg Of greeN AreAs iN the urBAN LAyOut

Today’s Lublin midtown has been shaped through both spontaneous and planned change. The oldest existing form of green landscaping in midtown Lublin are its convent gardens. Most of them have not retained their former character which was influenced by both changes in ownership and functionality. Planned green area landscaping as an element of urban composition appeared in Lublin for the first time at the beginning of the 19th century. It was then that the streamlined squares, markets and streets (Plac Musztry, Krakowskie Przedmieście, church squares) as well as the newly mapped out road and rail links gained a frame in the form of trees and shrubbery. A number of trees planted in the 19th century are still around to this day, forming a valued element of the city’s cultural and natural landscape. Soon after, the first city public parks appeared (Park na Czechówce, Ogród Miejski and Park Bronowicki). The historic cemeteries (at Lipowa St., the cemetery by the Evangelical church) are a very specific variant of urban green landscape in today’s midtown. This article shows kinds of planned green area urban landscaping characteristic to midtown Lublin, based on the archival source materials, project studies, literature and iconography. The transformations of forms and functionalities of the indicated areas have been studied in the period from their foundation to date. Lublin midtown’s most vital public space – Plac Litewski – was the subject of detailed analysis.


Introduction
The historic green area landscaping in midtown Lublin has been preserved mainly as form and functionality, generally losing its original structure. The individual old trees still remaining (natural monuments and the socalled veteran trees) carry exceptional natural, cultural and historical value for the city as the only living witnesses to its history. When categorising the kinds of historic greenery which plays a significant part in shaping its landscape there are the following kinds in terms of function: greenery accompanying streets and squares, public parks, cemetery greenery, convent gardens and the greenery in open riverside areas. When categorising historic greenery in terms of form, there are: preserved spatial systems, preserved trees and permanently urbanisation free areas.
The historic greenery in midtown Lublin can be understood twofold: as open green areas, urbanisation free since the initial settlement development, and as green landscaping areas, maintaining its original value in terms of form and structure. In 2018 within the city's administrative boundaries there were 63 living natural monuments, including 51 individual trees, 5 tree formations, 3 espaliers and 4 alleys which are under legal

Historic greenery in Lublin midtown -characteristics
In the context of the conducted research, Lublin midtown is understood as the area developed by way of the late 18 th century urban expansion, and later supplemented by the densification of the housing complex. This system's main composition axis is Krakowskie Przedmieście street with its western extension of Aleje Racławickie as well as the development area sealed by the line of Lipowa street and the valleys of rivers Czechówka and Bystrzyca. The midtown area also includes the Stare Miasto, Podzamcze, Czwartek and Kirkut districts. The Lublin midtown area analysed here is partially overlapping with the area under preservation orders (registration number A/153, A/915) as the city of Lublin Stare Miasto and Midtown urban complex.
The natural greenery areas combined with river valleys played an important role in the formation of midtown's urban layout, by creating a barrier for urban development for centuries. Until the canalisation of river Czechówka in the 1930s, this area was a continuity of natural systems. Today, the Lublin midtown is home to recreation areas and allotments organised within the river valleys. Morphologically, two areas can be distinguished: the so-called Rusałki and Podzamcza which, since the creation of Zalew Zemborzycki (1974) and the regulation of river Bystrzyca are no longer periodically flooded.
Greenery as a planned element of Lublin midtown Greenery as an important aesthetic and functional element of cities has been noticed only at the turn of the 18 th and 19 th century, when in larger cities, private gardens have been made available to the public and the first free access parks had been established2. Lublin's poor technical condition of the buildings and abysmal sanitation had been noticed in late 18 th century, mainly as a result of the activities of the Boni Ordinis Commission. In view of the scale of Lublin's then urban development, in the economically impoverished city, greenery as a functional element was not scarce, but it lacked in the aesthetic and sanitary terms. In the first city plan, made specifically for the commission, the existing green areas had been outlined with special indication of convent gardens and suburban residence gardens which had been the only forms of designed greenery in the urban area (Fig. 1). Only the redevelopment of Lublin in the 1920s became the period when green landscaping was introduced as an aesthetic element of streets and squares. Streetside greenery was accompanied by courtyard gardens and garden annexes opened into the street (such as Bernardyńska, Narutowicza, Krakowskie Przedmieście) which had been a transitional form between a free access square and a private garden. Lublin's first public park was established in the Jewish quartier area and so in an area with the worst sanitary condition. It was meant as an attempt to increase the district's health benefits3. Trees were planted and paths were made on both sides of river Czechówka. Sadly, the park was demolished just a few years later. The next park had been established in a more favourable location and this one was preserved till this day.

Convent and private gardens
Convent gardens can be viewed as the oldest form of green landscaping accompanying Lublin's urban development. The Dominican abbey, the oldest of Lublin's convents, was located in "the city within the walls". The most monastery foundations took place in the 17 th century and, as a result, there were 18 of them in late 18 th century. The new urban development located in Lublin's suburbs also contributed to their spatial expansion, but the land takeovers and the creation of "jurydyki"4 (Mazurkiewicz, 1956, p. 33−34) in time added to the city's economic decline. The historical events and processes from the late 18 th and early 19 th century have caused the decrease of Lublin's political, economical and cultural importance, its marginalisation and, as a result, the desolation of parts of the monasteries. In this process there is a visible similarity to the other former Crown Tribunal cities such as Cracow (Hodor 2012). The cessation of the monasteries from early 19 th century resulted in the introduction of new functionalities -military, and later generating -to the abandoned buildings. The convent gardens usually remained urbanisation free areas even after their function or ownership had changed.
The gardens of the Carmelites order, located along the Western side of the city's walls, have been transformed into a market square in the 19 th century. In the 1950s, a bus station was established in the southern part of the area, and the remaining space was turned into a square. Around 2000, the area was bought by a private investor with an investment purpose. A shopping mall was to have a few-storey underground parking place and an underground connection with the commercial part in the old town.
Many former convent garden areas in Lublin midtown now serve as parking facilities (Bernardines, Carmelites). The degradation of the historic tree stand in the small garden area adjacent to today's Szpitalna street in front of the Carmelites church is particularly visible. For a number of years, it has been used as a parking place and the old-growth forest is withering.
Other than the convent gardens in Lublin's suburbs, there were also gardens which accompanied the properties built from the 16 th century and owned by nobility and baronage. They did not receive a complete research approach. In a list from 1738, 47 such properties were mentioned: 11 described as palaces, 26 -courts, 10 -manors (Wójciuk 2015, 183). Some of them had small gardens, some visible as schematic representations in the cartography (Tretter 1803, Bieczyński 1829). The gardens were quartered in form, with individual parts separated by espaliers or hedges. These gardens did not survive to this day, but the ownership boundaries marked by them have become the basis for street designation in the 19 th and 20 th century.

Streetside greenery
In the initial years of the Polish Kingdom's existence, Lublin -which had become the second largest city in the Kingdom after Warsaw -was abandoned and ruined. After the establishment of the Zamość Fortress it became a major hub between the Kingdom and Russia, gaining in military and political importance. The 1830s was a period of fundamental changes to the city's appearance. Lublin's redevelopment between 1815 and 1830 mainly associated with the charting of new traffic routes: warszawski, lubartowski and zamojski (with Warsaw, Lubartów and Zamość) as well as the implementation of squares: Cathedral, Łokietka (in front of the city hall), Musztry (Litewski) and Bernardyński (Wolności). All these investments were accompanied by greenery -planting of trees, lawn and greenspace arrangement. When analysing the available iconography, a tendency is noticeable to plant public spaces with Lombardy poplars. They were planted in the sorted spaces of squares: at the Brigettine cloister, in Krakowskie Przedmieście5 and even in the Old Town, at Grodzka street, in front of St Michael's church6.
The entry roads into towns and cities were often planted with linden and chestnut trees (Przesmycka 2012). Roadside trees were "public property" and destroying or cutting them down was punishable with a fine. The threat of a punishment was usually not enough of a deterrent: it was common practice to cut down roadside trees as a way to dry the road or as firewood (Boguszewska, p. 47−48, 2017). Lombardy poplars were also planted along the road to Zamość, Lubartów and new road to Warsaw as well as some streets in the more densely built-up areas and the reorganised squares. No trees from that first period of replanting of road links have survived to this day, but the "lost" specimens were replaced by different trees as time went by and so the streetside greenery in the streets and former roads can be considered historic.
The establishment of the trench foot on the western side was of great importance to the city's urban development. They were both a symbolic and real city boundary on the axis of the natural direction of its expan-sion7. Located outside of the trench foot, the late 18 th century cemetery is not in midtown Lublin. Serving as a cemetery border, the street running along the trench line was planted with linden, hence its name -Lipowa. Few of the 19 th century linden trees have survived until the 1980s. The city cemetery at Lipowa is not only a valuable architectural complex but is also the second largest (after Ogród Saski) high greenery areas in midtown Lublin, with many species and historic tree specimens (Dąbski, Oleś 2006).
The historic greenery in midtown Lublin described above, with the exception of the Lipowa Street cemetery, is no longer there. The trees along the streets in Lublin's strict center (Krakowskie Przedmieście, Królewska, Narutowicza) were planted from mid-19 th century. When analysing the available iconography, it can be stated that among the used species there had been Lombardy poplars, linden, maple, acacia and chestnut trees (Królewska street). The trees were secured by picketing, but unfavourable development conditions caused repeated replacement of the picketing to be necessary. The tree stands suffered major damage after World War I (APLA, 2011, p. 10). In the mid-war period, trees were re-planted within the existing midtown streets, and all newly designed streets also were planted with trees, keeping in mind the scale of the tree, its placement with reference to the road, the urbanisation and underground infrastructure and proper securement8. The trees planted in the 19 th century have been preserved as relic specimens until the 1980s in the area of Lipowa, Narutowicza, Karmelicka, Krakowskie Przedmieście (at Litewski Square). The mid-war plantings were still present in the area of Szopena, Skłodowskiej, Okopowa, Radziszewskiego and Aleje Racławickie until the 1990s. In the early noughties, still in good condition, the trees from the PRL period (such as the Lombardy poplars in Hempla, the ash trees in Kołłątaja) had been cut down, and the red ash trees (Narutowicza, Peowiaków) had suffered the most due to the renovation of the sidewalk (2016−2017).
In the 1990s, new plantings in the Krakowskie Przedmieście area had been introduced, during the creation of traffic-free areas between Litewski Square and Brama Krakowska. The rounded varieties of false acacias and maple trees were planted, and they had survives several years. Nowadays (2018) a new planting was introduced in the Krakowskie Przedmieście area, with a species heretofore unknown in Lublin -sycamores. Over the last few years the withering streetside trees in the midtown have been successfully replaced by trees in concrete pots -linden, combined with low bushes and perennials. The lifespan of these trees is very short and heavily dependent on their intensive care.
Nowadays, street greenery decorations on various scale have become a popular occurrence: from pots hanging off street lamps, to pots with grass, to flat-formed trees, put outside in the summer. Such temporary green landscaping still does not solve the problem of its lack in the urban landscape, and the utilised forms and species are a result of current trends, and not a well thought out street image composition.
In terms of the need for shaping the streetside greenery in midtown Lublin, a positive phenomenon is the perception and recognition of the need to implement such greenery into the street landscape by the residents themselves. The citizen's budget, increasingly popular in recent years and since 2016 known as the Green Citizen's Budget, is a platform which best showcases the needs of the residents. From its very first day, the need of replanting streetside trees in midtown Lublin had been raised.

Ogród Saski (Miejski) [Saski Garden]
In 1837 the public garden was established in the area formerly owned by the Dominican Friars Minor monastery, extending between the new road towards Warsaw, Wieniawa town development and the western border of Lublin, marked out by the previously mentioned trench foot line and the adjacent cemetery. The park was designed by the engineer Feliks Bieczyński in the landscape style on an acreage of around 13 hectares (~32 acres). The area's natural hilly landform was used in the design of the park by incorporating the landscape interiors into it. Euzebiusz Maj (2007) points out the strong influence of the idea of Duchess Izabela Czartoryska from Puławy on the shaping of the landscape public park in the style of the "arboretum".
In the first phase of setting up the garden trees and bushes from the nearby Czechowski forest were planted. The Lublin residents were encouraged to "supply various bushes from their own gardens", and the more valuable plants were shipped over from other European gardens, such as Hamburg (Łodzia-Bieczyński 1854). Meadowgrass was used for sodding the lawns, and the hay was held for sale9. Other profitable plantations included nurseries of poplars and white mulberries for raising the silkworm. In time, the park also included elements of urban design, buildings and pavilions: a gazebo -confectionery, a gazebo rotunda, a cross-plan gazebo, two garden fountains (a 19 th century one and another, octagonal, from the mid-war period), and a sundial. A barometer with a thermometer was located at the entrance10. During World War II the park maintained its functionality. The Germans took good care of the garden and even built a new facility -a Tirol style, wooden, thatched roofed tavern. After the end of the occupation the German tavern was disassembled and after 1945, the garden fence and gate had been destroyed. Although the fence was reinstated, but it was low which was a factor in its increasing devastation.
Between 1945 and 1947, the Urban Greenery Management performed a refurbishment of the park (new plantings and a correction of the alleys). In 1953, in the place of the former salt depository on the southern border of the park the Dom Partii (House of the Party) building was raised, and subsequently in 1960 the "Pod Jesionem" cafe and the band shell in the north-western park of the park were built. In the 1970s and 80s the condition of the preserved greenery continuously worsened. In this period, the works were done in a sampling manner and consisted of ad hoc logging of withered trees, and the deadwood was only removed when the hanging branches constituted a direct threat to the people walking the alleys. The increasing air pollution is also a negative influence on the condition of the high greenery, especially conifers11. It was only in the mid-1990s, at the commission of the Municipal Office of the Department of Public Utilities, a project of managing the existing stands was developed. Between 2009 and 2013 a 12.7 mln PLN refurbishment of the garden took place12. The works included land leveling, removing of the erosion caused by rainwater and correcting the landform at the banks of the lower pond, as well as increasing the number of park benches to reach a total number of 150 seats. New paving was implemented -instead of asphalt alleys loam-shingle paving in paths with smaller tilt and asphalt with granite framing in those with bigger tilt. The pond basin and the water course bed were rebuilt. The playground was expanded and refurbished with the application of typical catalogue amusement apparatus. It was planted with a circle of the rounded variety of false acacias -a decision based on the iconography by Gerard Ciołek13. During the refurbishment, 385 trees were cut down (among 2.5 thousand) with the aim of making the original park composition clearer -which in turn was met with public uproar14. New historicizing elements of urban gardening design were introduced in the park, as well as an aviary for ornamental birds.
Nowadays the role of Ogród Saski is mainly its recreational function (walks, picnicking, concerts). After the refurbishment of the garden, dogs and cycling are no longer allowed in its grounds. The vicinity of this historic greenery also has a large influence on the property market. In 2012, the adjacent Kosmos cinema was 78 NAtALiA PrzesmycKA, KAmiLA BOguszewsKA demolished and in its place, the residential building "Centrum Park" appeared. Currently, works are underway in multiple other residential buildings located in close vicinity of the park, offering high-standard apartments.

Plac Litewski (Litewski Square)
As opposed to Ogród Saski described above, Plac Litewski is a public space whose composition, development and functionality have changed multiple times over the last 200 years. The current Plac Litewski15 was created as a result of being moved to the area of the so-called Plac Na Rozdrożu -a drill square (Fig. 3). Military parades and parade drills took place there as a form of both mass entertainment and a political element. Between 1818 and 1821, the area intended for the so-called Pole Marsowe (Campus Martius) was cleared of the remains of the demolished Order of St John monastery, hardened, planted with Lombardy poplars and surrounded by barriers16. The square was around 2 hectares (~5 acres) in acreage, and it was divided into two functional parts: on the western side there was an open space for parades and assembly, and on the eastern side there was a wooded square with a monument of the Union of Lublin. It was to "not only serve military purposes but also at the same time decorate this part of the suburb"17.
The square was created in front of the seat of the Lubelskie Voivodeship Commission (KWL), located in the former Szeptycki palace. It was Lublin's first public green area with lawns, flowerbeds and alleys leading in the direction of Krakowskie Przedmieście. In 1826 an obelisk commemorating the Union of Lublin was placed in the axis of the building (Kurzątkowski 1985, 60)18. At the turn of 1823/24 on the western side of the drill square Czechowska street was delineated (now 3 Maja), which shaped the current Plac Litewski19. The western frontage of the square was demarcated by the neo-Gothic buildings of the Customs Office and the Regional Commission, or district, from the 1830s. (Przesmycka 2012, 80). It is assumed that the first author of the development project of the Plac Litewski greenery was Feliks Bieczyński (1852) -however, the plan project was not preserved and the degree to which the plan of greening of the whole square was executed is difficult to assess20. After the Orthodox church was built in 1876, the former drill area was developed into green spaces. The square became a sequence of piazzas. From the western side, the alleys were directing into the axis of the gateway to the church, whose immediate surroundings were gates and surrounded with bushes. On the axis of the KWL building, a wooded square was developed, directed at the mound with the Union of Lublin monument. From the Krakowskie Przedmieście side, a triple row of trees was planted. In the part near the Orthodox church the row was quaternary -including the existing trees. One of those trees was a black poplar, preserved till 2017, locally known as the Baobab. The rows of trees were also present at the western side of the square and along the transport routes by the front of the church through the entire width of the square21. In the 1890s, two proposals of a new development of the square were designed by the Warsaw mapper, Z. Kisielewski. Its tripartite was maintained, each with the form of a green area planned in an informal, calligraphic style (Ciołek, 1954, p. 270). The flowerbeds in the areas of the KWL and the Union of Lublin monument were particularly decoratively designed. However, the project was never implemented -the division of the interior and the idea of the green areas was preserved. The governor's garden, together with the Union of Lublin monument, were demarcated from the space of the square with a wooden fence, the green spaces were surrounded by barriers so that the public had no access to any of them (Gawarecki, 1958, 246). The wooden fences of the squares 15 The name has been in use since about 1839. Architectural and Landscape Study of Plac Litewski, Lublin 2000. were dismantled in 1912 and replaced by low iron people stoppers, but the green spaces remained closed to the public (Dybała, 1972, 93). The Plac Litewski redevelopment project by Henryk Paprocki stems from 190822. As a graduate from the Petersburg Tzar Academy of Arts, Paprocki gained him architect title in 1901, and from 1902 he was Lublin's city architect (Żywicki 2010, 488). His project maintained the division of the square into three parts: the central part around the 1875 Orthodox church, the eastern part between the governor's palace and the Union of Lublin monument, and the western part, restricted by Czechowska street (today 3 Maja) and the Europejski Hotel building. Between those parts, the traffic routes were designed, linking the government buildings with Krakowskie Przedmieście. The green spaces with parterre forms, surrounding the Orthodox church and in the western part of the square were rectangular and triangular in form, and in the church-adjacent part, encircle it, creating an oval square. The lawns inside surround the hedges with rows of trees. It is most probable that the architect had skillfully incorporated with existing older trees -the oaks in the north-western corner of the square and the black poplar -into the geometric system, situating them in the corners of his designed system23.
The remaining trees are ornamental species, placed in equal distances. The green space on the axis of the Union of Lublin monument and the governor's palace has a geometric but slightly differing character. The designer customised its layout to the oblique axis which links the monument and the palace. The obelisk, placed on a mound, was accompanied by plantings of ornamental bushes placed centrally, and most of the space was covered by a vast lawn with a circular path course. In the eastern part of the square, Paprocki had designed a green space in the form of a wedge, planted with not too tall ornamental trees, which defined the garden interior of the governor's palace planting. This project was also not fully implemented, but between 1910 and 1928, Plac Litewski was rebuilt, maintaining the elements mentioned in the plan, which is visible in the preserved cartography24.
The buildings appearing at the turn of the centuries completed the Plac Litewski urbanist interiors (Victoria hotel, tenement houses with shops on the ground floors nearby the post office building, the Lublin Entrepreneur Fund building designed by Gustaw Landau (Gawarecki 1959, 104). Opposite the square, between 1912 and 1914 the new National Bank building was erected, in the place of the former customs office which was demolished in 1911, designed by W. Sołowiew, in the "Petersburg Empire" style (Gawarecki 1959, p. 99). The placement of nearly exclusively public facilities around Plac Litewski reaffirmed its existing importance. It became a representative space, a place of historical and political events (Przesmycka, 2012, 99). After Poland's regaining of independence, the Orthodox church was demolished (1923−24). In 1928 an architectural contest call was launched for the development of Plac Litewski and it was won by the architect Aleksander Gruchalski. In the mid-war period, Plac Litewski was a popular leisure spot. In the World War II period, the cast iron fences in the eastern and northern parts of the square had been removed. In the northern part of the square's center a rectangular firefighting water tank was located which, surrounded by flowerbeds, also served an ornamental purpose. It was preserved in this form till 1957 (Studium…, 2000).
In 1945, a monument of Gratitude to the Soviet Army was erected in Plac Litewski, and it dominated the central part of the square as well as the previously existing monuments25.
In 1962 the square was yet again refurbished, this time with the design of mgr inż T. Bobek and inż. arch. T. Augustynek (Miastoprojekt Lublin). Consulting on the project were prof. fine artist J. Jarnuszkiewicz and prof. G. Ciołek (in terms of green landscaping). The project adapted existing natural and spatial elements of the square, while at the same time incorporating the current aesthetic styles of the 1960s. Its spatial tripartite was maintained. The fountain was given a hexagonal form which was popular at the time, the existing trees were preserved and highlighted, especially the black poplars. New paving with geometric divisions was implemented. The square became an exposition space for three monuments: the 3 rd May Constitution, the Union of Lublin and the dominating Gratitude monument. After the change of political system, the latter was disassembled (1990). Ten years later, with the initiative of the Lublin branch of the Piłsudczyk Association, attempts were made to erect an equestrian statue of Marshal Piłsudski in Plac Litewski. The proposed location was met with resistance from the conservation bodies, due to the lack of inclusion of the qualities of the square's urban composition. Despite the disagreement, the statue was erected on the basis of roadworks investment application of a "temporary object in the form of the equestrian statue of Marshal Piłsudski" (Landecka, 2008, 77). The statue in its unchanged form and location still exists to this day.
The analysis of available iconography shows that since the 1940s, the composition of Plac Litewski was dominated by the solitary tree -the black poplar (known as the Baobab from the mid -1900s). In time, the tree become not only a dominant of the system but also the symbol of Plac Litewski and one of Lublin residents most beloved meeting spots.
In 2000, an Architectural and Landscape Study of Plac Litewski in Lublin was drafted, including detailed design outlines. The inventory created for the purpose of the study showed 241 trees, including five natural monuments: two common oaks (317 and 296 cm in circumference with a height of 1.3 meters), two Norway maples (267 and 245 cm) and a black poplar (484 cm in circumference) (Studium…, 2000, 29). The trees' age analysis, prepared for the purpose of the study, indicated the existence in Plac Litewski of 19 trees estimated to be around 100 years old (including 5 natural monuments) and 8 trees up to 100 years old, and their health and vitality were estimated for around 70−90%. The Baobab's vitality was estimated for 70%.
Before the Plac Litewski redevelopment project was implemented, a number of architectural calls of various ranks was organised (1995,2007,2008,2010)26. After the redevelopment, Plac Litewski has become an attractive space for many groups of users. The implementation of modern architectural and composition elements highlights the preserved elements of the historic green landscaping and the old trees. The designers planned for the exposition of the black poplar, but during the construction works the decision was made to cut it down. It was a very controversial matter and the subject of widespread debate in Lublin media. The tree was removed from the natural monument list based on a dendrological evaluation (Durlak, Dudkiewicz, Dąbski, 2016). The analysis of the condition of the tree showed the circumference of 506 cm at 1.3 meters, the height of 16 meters and the tree top range of 7 meters. It must be pointed out that the tree top at the time was very much reduced, asymmetrical and largely lowered due to the many years of maintenance. The tree trunk from the southern side all the way to the top was devoid of outer bark, with the occurrence of oyster mushroom sporocarps. The tomography showed that the damaged timber at the height of 1.3 meters constitutes 71% of the cross section, the "technically fit" timber was 15% and the remaining 14% is in a transitional phase (Durlak, Dudkiewicz, Dąbski 2016. 8−9). The bad condition of the tree and the risk of the possible treefall or breakage were the basis of formulation in the expertise of the request to remove the tree from the natural monument list and to remove it from the square area for safety reasons. (Durlak, Dudkiewicz, Dąbski, 2016, 10).
The removal of the Baobab coincided with the celebrations of 700 years of Lublin's location. The tree, going back to the times of Feliks Bieczyński, still had living green leaves at the time of its chopping which added a particularly dramatic aspect to its "execution". Euzebiusz Maj, art historian, and above all gardening specialist and author of many green landscaping projects in Lublin, in his open letter to the Lublin authorities indicated the tree's cultural importance. After the fall of the January Uprising in 1863, in a period of yet another national mourning, Plac Litewski in Lublin, arranged by Feliks Bieczyński was a place which in a way expected the introduction of a symbolic object with a meaning and importance hidden from the occupant. The black poplar became that symbol -as a tree of great vitality and mammoth dimensions -was soon to weaken the spatial exposition of the Orthodox church, built by the Russians in 187428.
The city center of Lublin, apart from the obvious service and cultural functions, is also a residence zone. The historical green in Lublin midtown, apart from natural, composite and aesthetic functions, is an element of the life quality for the inhabitants.
The quality of life is not only linked to the very presence of urban greenery, but also to the type of environment in which they live. Except for parks, Lublin city center is practically free of high green, which is most beneficial for the feeling of quality of life. This relationship also shows research based on cartographic modeling (Krukowski, 2018, p. 20−21).
In 2019 under the Civil Budget, a study on the quality of life assessment was carried out in the various districts of Lublin. The Lublin midtown and the Lublin Old Town, against the background of other districts, were located in a group of typical living quarters. As investment priorities in the second place (after new parking places), the residents indicated the need to develop and care for green areas. In the case of Lublin midtown and the Lublin Old Town, this need is at the top of the list, which is different from those declared by the general population of Lublin and clearly demonstrates the needs.

Summary
There are currently 61 greenery areas under conservation protection in Lublin's administrative boundaries. 34 among them are registered as historical monuments by administrative decision where it is stated explicitly that the greenery is under protection (Mącik, 2017).29 When considering the Lublin Old Town and midtown urbanist complex area, one needs to note the role of historic greenery in the shaping of the urban landscape and structure. The convent gardens and palace-manor plantings largely influenced the ownership division. The street layout in Lublin midtown was to a large extent conditioned by the placement of the boundaries of convent estates and gardens. To this day 14 convent estates remain, of which only six maintained the continuity of their functionality (Pudelska, Mirosław, 2011, 81−91). An important group are the gardens which are not listed, but accompanying the historic buildings. Lublin midtown urbanist layout was largely influenced by the now-defunct garden of the Discalced Carmelites monastery. It covered the area of a prolonged, triangular shape, expanding along the former city walls. From the 19 th century a market square appeared in its place, then transformed into a plaza after World War II, and currently into a construction site of a multilevel underground parking facility. Another garden in the very midtown is the largest preserved and still functioning convent garden -the (formerly Bridgettine) garden at Dolnej Panny Marii street. It is a community garden with cultivation of fruit and vegetables and an orchard. These urbanisation free areas are now of exceptional natural, landscape and aesthetic value.