Piet Oudolf is 73 this year but insists that he is still learning. One of the world’s pioneers in planting design, he creates complex, highly successful naturalistic schemes that are constantly changing and evolving – due in part to his never-ending curiosity. ‘You have to grow plants to understand them,’ he says. ‘In the beginning, we propagated 95 percent of all our plants for the nursery and garden. You see how competitive it is, you watch how it flowers, how it seeds, how it dies.’
The hub of his experimentation with plants has been his garden in Hummelo, east of Amsterdam. Having studied landscape design in his twenties, he began to design gardens throughout Amsterdam, soon realising that plants were his main passion. With limited plants available in Holland’s nurseries at the time, he decided to start one himself, and, with his wife Anja and their two children, moved to a plot of land that was big enough for that purpose. Seeking out the best garden plants to offer to his clientele, Piet came to specialise in large, robust perennials that would offer the same sort of bulky profile as a shrub.
‘Perennials weren’t fashionable at the time. I wanted plants that would perform in a similar way to a shrub, but had the advantage of being perennial. Perennials are so much more dynamic, they change with the seasons, die back, come again; there is so much more of an emotional connection with them.’
Piet’s studio in the former nursing area
Baptisia leucantha
Networking tirelessly with botanists and plantspeople across the breadth of Europe and beyond, he sought out the plants he wanted, bringing little-known genera such as sanguisorba and filipendula to a more mainstream audience, and breeding his own seed strains including the now well-known Gaura lindheimeri‘Whirling Butterflies’ and Salvia verticillata‘Purple Rain’.
As for taking time to garden himself, Piet now has help as his considerable Dutch height has brought him back problems. But although he travels widely and is in demand as a designer, he spends as much time as he can working in his studio, and walking around his garden observing, thinking, planning. ‘It’s all about planting things together in the right communities so that they are happy,’ he concludes. ‘Patterns in nature influence you in ways you can’t understand.’
Piet Oudolf deep among grasses and seed heads in the garden at the front of his home in Hummelo, Holland. In autumn, grasses such as deschampsia and panicum turn shades of gold, blond and russet, while strong seed heads of echinaceas, veronicastrum and phlomis turn chocolate brown.
Cimicifuga ‘Queen of Sheba’
The pond in the front garden
This is an excerpt from our April issue, currently on shelf. For more Oudolf inspiration visit oudolf.com
Photography
Andrew Montgomery Words
Clare Foster
