The Real Eden Project - How the Garden is an Extension of the Liturgy and a Recreation of Paradise

Here is an article taken from the Orthodox Arts Journal in a series of called An Icon of the Kingdom of God - the Integrated Expression of all the Liturgical Arts (h/t James Morgan). It is written by Andrew Gould the architect (and it seems garden designer).

This is right in line with my own thoughts on the importance cultivating for beauty; that a proper ecology is one in which man, by God's grace, manages the environment by working harmoniously with it. As a result he builds it up to what it ought to be which, as a general rule, is greater and more beautiful than it is as untouched wilderness. Accordingly gardening is in some way recreating Eden, or even the paradise of the redeemed world (which perhaps some might consider to be very similar but perhaps not exactly the same thing).

There is a hierarchy. Well farmed land is more beautiful than the wilderness it replaced. And then a garden cultivated for the contemplation of its beauty is more elevated still. So in my mind, it is more noble thing to grow flowers in your back garden than to grow vegetables...or keep chickens.

Read the article here...

The pictures below are taken from the article:

The flower garden of the Stretensky Monastery, Moscow

Western European style with the cross-in-square archetype of paradise in the Alcazar, Cordoba, Spain

Byzantine courtyard at the Kaisariani Monastery, Greece

St Anthony's Monastery, Egypt

Medieval style garden designed by the author in South Carolina

The following photographs are of the gardens of the Alhambra palace in Granada in southern Spain.