Piet Oudolf is an award winning landscape architect and one of the most highly sought after designers of public and private gardens today. In the 1980s and 90s his naturalistic landscapes revolutionized the gardening world, and his trademark designs now bloom from Germany to Detroit inside of private gardens, museums, galleries, and public parks. In our continuing series on modern artists and designers, we look at Piet Oudolf’s visionary gardens, and their marriage of architecture, ecology, and design.

Born in the Netherlands in 1944, Oudolf discovered gardening at the age of 25. Drawn at first to classical English styles, he developed his own avant garde aesthetic after observing wild plants in nature, and wondering why these interesting and beautiful varieties couldn’t also be used in garden design as well. In a departure from traditional, manicured, and ordered designs centered on flowers, Oudolf creates naturalistic landscapes that mix grasses and interesting perennials in meadow-like displays that feel spontaneous and wild. Set amongst smooth, winding pathways and modern shapes, they’re a blend of nature and design.

When he first started out as a landscape architect the plants he sought were difficult to find. So, he and his wife Anja grew them themselves at the plant nursery they started at their home in Hummelo.

This opportunity to observe plants from seed as they grew revealed those that were best suited to his designs. Some bunched together like bushes, growing curved, arched, and gnarled, and others stood up straight, tall, and wiry. Some competed and overseeded, taking over a garden, and others lived harmoniously with their neighbors. Leaves, stems, seed heads, and flowers transformed throughout the seasons, and different plants lived for different lengths of time. Noting these details, he discovered his palette: beautiful and colorful plants that would remain interesting and well behaved for years.

Oudolf designs each garden by hand, mapping out in circles and abstract shapes a layout that’s in itself, a piece of modern art.

Each site’s environment, topography, the way it will be used, and plans for the future inform the layers of the design. Young trees will eventually grow taller, and shapes and colors will change each day, as buds, shoots, leaves, and flowers appear or become transformed. However, this organic, undulating evolution is incorporated into his designs. His gardens are living works in progress. “I make something that is so fluid, so changeable. My work is never finished, but is always just the beginning of something. It’s not making a painting and putting it on the wall. It’s making a painting and letting it grow and decay.” - vitra.com interview.

Oudolf’s designs celebrate not only the sumptuous beauty of flowers, but plants’ bones, as they stand dead and dying in winter and fall. Just like in nature, in this state they still add unique textures, shapes, and colors to a visual landscape, and their sculpture-like remains benefit the ecosystem. Seeds and shelter attract birds, bees, butterflies, insects, and animals, and decomposing plant matter nourishes the soil. Oudolf’s embrace of this entire cycle adds a depth to his garden designs. They are not merely ornamental displays, but immersive microcosms of life.

His gardens are spaces to get lost in. They often feature curving, meandering paths with no apparent beginning or end, and grassy mounds, chairs, benches, and sculptures.

In cities, they provide a place where people can connect with nature, and their naturalistic designs fit in with even the most urban architectural skylines and downtown environments.

Oudolf’s work can be found at museums, galleries, private homes, institutions, and public spaces around the world, including custom designs for New York’s High Line and Battery Park, the Lurie Garden in Chicago’s Millennium Park, Detroit’s Bell Island, Germany’s Maximilian Park and Vitra Campus, Hauser & Wirth Somerset and Isla del Rey, London’s Serpentine Gallery, Noma in Copenhagen, the Venice Biennale, and for the No. 5 Culture Chanel exhibit in Paris. 

Images courtesy of Piet Oudolf, Hauser & Wirth, Delaware Botanic Gardens, Maximilian Park, Vitra, Scampston, Dwell Magazine, Wallpaper Magazine, Design Boom, Flower Magazine, House & Garden, The Chicago Tribune, The Financial Times, The Robb Report, The New Perennialist, The Vancouver Sun, artforum.com, gardendesign.com, designcurial.com, gardenista.com, The American Society of Landscape Architects, Society of Garden Designers, The Cultural Landscape Foundation, Detroitisit, Verve Garden Design, Jason Ingram, Chris Denning, Brüse, Andrew Montgomery, Phillipe Perdereau, Noel Kingsbury, Jo Fawcett, Jo Whitworth, Hans van Horssen, Heather Edwards, Marek Iwicki, Julien Lanoo, Robin Carlson, Anna Huix, Successio Miro, VEGAP, Daniel Schaefer, Annik la Farge, and Rick Darke.