Piet Oudolf

As the introduction to this book says, Piet Oudolf has gained the reputation as one of the world's most forward-looking and inspired garden designers and this book aims to explain his work and makes his methods accessible.
I I first came across his work in another book: "Planting: a new perspective". The style was not altogether new to me but it is certainly a break from formal gardens with clipped hedges and geometric outlines. Much of the book is a re-evaluation of what we might regard as beautiful in a garden. Oudolf is concerned with gardens as kind of abstract art and he sculptures with plants playing particular attention to shape as well as colour and how the plants look year round...not just when they might be flowering. I found this aspect of his work quite fascinating....that even in the depths of winter he was looking to plants like "Miscanthus sinesis...its seedbeds weighed down with frost" to give a statuesque beauty to the garden. As he says: "There is beauty to be found in nature on every single day of the year, so it must possible to ensure that you have beauty in your garden all year round too. Those who see beauty in only bright colours, however, must learn to look differently at plants, at the forms and structures beneath."

In a way, Ouldorf seems to re-create the natural garden that one might find in the wild with mixtures of plants ....maybe with no apparent order. Though this is probably misleading or deceptive because a lot of forethought and planning is going into his gardens. He details a broad set of governing principles which include:
-The planting palette...form, leaves, colour. In the same way that a painter can select from a palette of coloured pigments so too can the garden designer select from a palette of plants. But the plant designer, apart from colours can consider shapes and textures of both their flowers and seedbeds and leaves. (He mainly seems to work with perennials rather than shrubs...and I am curious about how he might incorporate shrubs and trees into his plantings.
Under the broad heading of "Designing schemes" he discusses the elements he takes into account in designing:
-Combining the forms of the plants...primarily their shape.
-Combining colours.
-Structure and filler plants. Some plants with spires and umbels are so strong that they automatically define themselves as structural. But filler plants might be like daisies or buttons. And filler plants tend to look messy after flowering. So he suggests that you should choose filler plants that are strong growing and reliable, but not invasive.
-Using grasses. He clearly likes the use of grasses...."They have a lightness of touch a subtlety, and elegance". And their ability to respond to light makes them invaluable, particularly in winter...where they glow in the low winter sun.
-Using umbellifers....... great for evoking nature in your garden.
-Repetition and rhythm. Repeating certain species or shapes or colours is the obvious way to create rhythm. Spires are the most potent form for achieving good rhythm.
He then moves into a set of more practical instructions for assembling a planting, and planting through the seasons...with a list of plants (for example) that continue to look good after flowering. And then discusses using plants as architecture ...with (contrary to my assertions above about formal gardens) suggestions that clipped pillars and hedges can be used to provide an element of formality within the garden. (I must say that this seems rather contradictory to most of what he appears to be preaching).

And I rather like the next section where he suggests that the garden should not be something that is frozen in time but it should show the cyclical nature of the gardening process and demonstrate emotion and mood. He deals in turn with light, movement, harmony, control (I couldn't understand what he was trying to say with "control"...it seemed to be about massed plantings) sublime (he says that this is the opposite of control...it's where nature seems to have escaped from the gardener...and taken on a life of its own), mysticism (Hmmm.....well he does agree "that it is a strange word to use with a garden and is best distilled as a spiritual experiencer where one feels at one with the whole of creation"....and it depends almost entirely on circumstances which are beyond your control ...for example with mist or fog in the garden.
He has a couple of really nice sections near the end of the book. A section on year-round planting ....planting for each of the four seasons (though the aboriginals in Sydney have described about seven seasons)......and a plant directory which should be really useful to people wanting to put his principles into practice.
I guess, overall, his ideas are about the natural garden...but one that is actually very carefully crafted and contrived to appear natural. He does spell out his principles fairly clearly ...which is great....but seems to get a bit lost with the elements of control, sublime and mysticism.
And his approach (in this book anyway) is very tailored to a northern European country with four clear seasons ..and plenty of rain. But I'd like to see his plantings and thinking for a much drier, warmer, mediterranean environment such as we enjoy in Sydney. The same principles can obviously apply though the plants would be different and its would be smart to use natives which are adapted to the conditions anyway.
I was debating whether or not to keep the book but after writing this review ...which forced me to kind-of re-read it....I'm rather taken by it and will certainly keep it. Four stars from me.… (more)