Cork Oak Garden

 

For five months every year the Festival Internacional de Jardins in Northern Portugal showcases innovative garden designers from around the world. Reckless Orchard's 2011 garden was designed to highlight the beauty and vulnerability of the traditional cork oak forests of Portugal. Arvores - a  poem by Antonio Ramos Rosa, one of Portugal's leading poets, written on a cinnamon coloured wall and reflected in a black pool formed the centre-piece.  Cork was used in imaginative ways and granite seats were created out of recycled vine posts. Iberian Lynx paw prints provided a fun, but thought-provoking trail around the garden.