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The German landscape architect Richard Bödeker has been working in the Middle East for over 30 years. It began with city and leisure parks in Saudi Arabia’s oil province of Al Hasa, from 1977 there followed public parks, gardens and boulevards in the capital city of Riyadh. Projects such as the landscape and garden planning for the diplomatic district in Riyadh were awarded the Aga Khan Prize in 1989 – the first time that a landscape plan was honoured with this architecture prize. Further large-scale public assignments followed and moulded the country’s capital to such an extent that finally Saudi princes had Bödeker design their gardens. In his company we are permitted to enter the otherwise secret private sphere of the Saudi royal family and be present when he chats with the princes. One of his clients is Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, the first and hitherto only Arab to have travelled in space. Nowadays the Prince is engaged in a pioneering project for the preservation and development of Arab culture: his farm and his garden Al-Udhaibat. In this Bödeker is his closest adviser. The Saud family, that rules the country, even assigned their German gardener to design the landscape surrounding the Masmak Fort, the birthplace of the kingdom of Saudi-Arabia. The familiarity of the landscape architect with the Saudi-Arabian Highnesses grants us insights into the lifestyle of a world normally closed to the media.