PRAIRIE IN A CLOISTER

What is a prairie doing in a cloister?
I have great difficulty reconciling the Oudolf planting with the building by Peter Zumthor. 

I just do not get it...I enjoyed the planting and loved the building but it grates conceptually.Was it a deliberate contrast between an enclosed space and an open space? Cloisters by definition are secluded and private and prairie planting (or steppe or naturalistic meadow planting however you wish to define it) belongs to the open, treeless plains and fields. 

WELSH OAK

I saw this magnificent Oak tree in Wales in August of this year (2011) in the Gilfach Farm Nature Reserve near St Harmon in Powys. It caught my eye because it dominates the farm valley with a mass that echoes those of the surrounding hills. It must be about 250 years old.....young for an oak. The silvery leaves cover a sturdy dense branching framework that straddles the River Marteg beneath. Otters paddle and fish along with Dippers and Kingfishers in the river's rocky cascades, swirling pools and quieter stretches. 

YORKSHIRE DALES

This lovely early morning shot was taken by the photographer Allan Pollock-Morris in a garden I have been working on for a while. The garden is deep within the Yorkshire Dales and surrounded by a magnificent landscape that earns the epithet that Yorkshire is God's Own Country.

SILVER AND GREEN

 This is a wonderful new project in the foothills of the Alpilles near St Remy de Provence. What appeals is the magical location and intensity of the landscape experience. Within a short space, the fore, mid and background of the property quickly take the eye up to a medieval chapel that overlooks the property and acts as it's Guardian Angel. The colours of the landscape are quintessentially Mediterranean with glistening silvery olive leaves against a backdrop of pines (Pinus halepensis) in vibrant green. An eighteenth century lime kiln is the oldest building on the property while the oldest artifact is the Roman aqueduct that meanders through the garden eventually ending in the city of Arles.