Getting back to nature can be hard when you're a city slicker, but France is planning a spiral skyscraper that brings nature directly into the city via an incredible vertical garden

Vertical gardens are the green thumbed way of putting nature back into cities jam packed with steel, glass and bricks. Feats of amazing architecture, engineering and landscaping - they are as easy on the eye as they are on the environment. Forward-looking France has jumped on the vertical garden wheelbarrow with their plan for a 150-meter high skyscraper in Toulouse's CBD, covered with trees and plants.

The Libeskind-designed skyscraper garden tower

Designed by New York-based Studio Libeskind, the skyscraper, called The Occitanie Tower, is slated to rise 40 storeys, will feature a twisting, spiral shape, verdant gardens and will house apartments, a Hilton Hotel, retail, dining and of course, spectacular views. When complete, the tower will join the increasing list of stunning foliage-covered buildings cropping up around the globe. Here, we've rounded up eight of the most beautiful vertical gardens in the world:

Is France building the greenest skyscraper on the planet?