Piet Oudolf

Week 01

 Piet Oudolf

SOPHIE WISEMAN

Since reading the 'Planting The Oudolf Gardens, At Hauser & Wirth Somerset' book as research for one of my Modules, I found the process that Oudolf used to create such striking gardens, intriguing. 

Oudolf's work depicts the style of post-war continental Europe and utilised naturalistic and matrix planting methods. The maintenance for these planting methods is intensive however is needed to prevent the plants from surviving less than just one year. This is because the plant palette is made of artificial plant communities and herbaceous plants. Furthermore, the settings made via the planting are unobtrusive and portray a well-balanced feel. 

The difference between this naturalistic style of planting and the traditional 'English planting' is that English gardens focus on removing any blemishes to imitate an eternal spring as the English garden was initially used to plant around the house as a boarder and exaggerate key elements of the architecture. On the other hand, naturalistic planting showcases the imperfections of the site and presents the seasonal changes as positive characteristics of the site, giving a 4D quality of time. 

One aspect of Oudolf's work that I find particularly interesting is his approach when creating his planting plans. He uses a loose style of drawing that vaguely dictates the areas for each planting area (drifts), then produces detailed planting lists and finally creates a final draft on AutoCAD or SketchUp.

A common theme of his work is the 'acceptance of decay' and this is seen in the effective planting which displays seasonal change, especially throughout the winter months. He uses 'winter skeletons' to portray this concept and I feel the outcome is successful and powerful. The specific plants I find that he uses for this cause, and work well are; Lysimachia ephemerum, Filipendula rubra, Aster macrophyllus, and Discanthus carthusianorum. (are presented in the photo below and read from left to right)

References 

The, S. (2018). Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf (2017). [online] Cinema Clock. Available at: https://www.cinemaclock.com/movies/five-seasons-the-gardens-of-piet-oudolf-2017 [Accessed 29 Sep. 2023].

LandscapeDesign.pl (2022). Landscape Architecture. [online] Pinterest. Available at: https://www.pinterest.co.kr/pin/4996249579128958/ [Accessed 29 Sept. 2023].

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