IT MIGHT look like the latest modern art installation, but Mother Nature designed this all by herself.

The bizarre sight greeted horticulturist Rona Ashworth after gale force winds wrecked a polytunnel at her nursery.

Mrs Ashworth, of Mount Pleasant Plants, Leavening, near Malton, put up the protective covering over herbaceous plants less than a week ago.

But the weather had other plans and created a sculpture many modern artists would envy.

Mrs Ashworth said: "My neighbour came round to tell me and when I first saw it, I must admit I laughed.

"It was like a modern sculpture with the sun glinting through it.

"It really did look a bit freakish."

Mrs Ashworth said the strong winds totally devastated the protective covering, which had stood about half the height of a normal walk-in polytunnel.

She said: "The wind was so strong that it blew some of the aluminium hoops out of the framework and bent them double."

But green-fingered Mrs Ashworth says she has hit upon an idea to outsmart any more wild weather heading her way.

She said: "What I shall do now is not use a polythene tunnel, but instead just put in a netting one so the plants are protected from the elements and the wind can go through the holes."

Updated: 11:33 Monday, February 25, 2002