MONTREAL - Jane’s Walks, dedicated to the memory of revolutionary urban planner Jane Jacobs, are a wonderful way of learning how much you don’t know about your own city.

Who would have expected to find a long row of raspberry and blackberry bushes growing in a raised box behind a Tower St. apartment block in downtown Montreal, just steps away from Ste. Catherine St.? And who knew that a “ruelle verte,” or green alley, with cultivated plants and trees and a communal compost box at one end runs parallel to René Lévesque Blvd. not far from Cabot Square? The number of restored homes on Tupper and Baile Sts. that wear metal plaques with their date of construction is also impressive when noted for the first time.

Details like this aren’t usually noticed by non-residents of Shaughnessy Village, an area located below Sherbrooke St., east of Atwater Ave., when they drive by or shop or dine in this mixed commercial and residential area. It takes a tour guide like Ann Robinson, leader for one of this year’s Jane’s Walks, to point out the unique spots in the area and explain how they got there.

Robinson and her husband, who are actively involved in the Shaughnessy Village Association (the president is theatrical producer Roger Peace), have owned their property on Fort St. since 1981.

The 10 annual Jane’s Walks organized by the Montreal Urban Ecology Centre this weekend were led by people like Robinson who are enthusiastic about their own neighbourhoods — and about Jacobs. (The walks are also held in other cities throughout North America.)

“I just love that term she used, ‘the street ballet,’ ” Robinson said of Jacobs as she began her talk before the walk.

“The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place,” Jacobs once wrote, “and in any one place is always replete with new improvisations.”

To Brian Monk of N.D.G., one of about 20 people who signed up for Sunday’s Shaughnessy Village trek, there’s no such thing as too many Jane’s Walks. This was his second one of the weekend. “They’re very well done and very enjoyable,” he said. He’d already done a Jewish-themed tour of the Plateau in the morning. And he would have been up for a third, if there had been another one that fit his schedule.

“In Montreal, whatever is happening in the summer, I do it,” said the retired software developer, who regularly does volunteer work for festivals like the Montreal Fringe.

Sharon Nelson, assistant director of the executive MBA program at Concordia University, said she came to the walk because “it was a beautiful day and I just wanted to walk and to learn a little bit more about Shaughnessy Village.”

For Andrew Harvey, an almost-qualified architect who works for Éco-Quartier, taking a Jane’s Walk was a bit of a busman’s holiday. He led a Jane’s Walk last year, in St-Henri. Whenever the group stopped to admire a green initiative on Sunday, he readily provided additional information.

While there was an emphasis on hidden surprises, the route also took in notable landmarks like the Grey Nuns’ Convent and the Canadian Centre for Architecture.