The vast majority of people who know Piet’s work are familiar with it from arrays of massed perennials and grasses. Piet Oudolf has thus succeeded in emancipating planting design as an art form in its own right, bringing it out of its niche and on to the big stage.

This has all helped to elevate an Oudolf planting design to a work of art, one that can stand on its own, as opposed to serving as an accessory or mere decoration. Even galleries and museums have come to value plants as a design tool for their outdoor areas or even to include them directly in art projects, as at the Venice Biennale. Renowned garden designers are now being valued increasingly for their specialist knowledge, and are even being brought in on high-profile projects and accepted as equal partners among architects. He has brought perennials back into the consciousness of landscape architecture. His real achievement is in elevating the work of designing with plants to a whole new level. But by the time any given design has been completed, Piet has long since moved on in his creative thoughts and visions, and never reuses exactly the same combination of plants. Piet is surprisingly relaxed about the possibility that others might copy him, saying they are welcome to do so. Piet’s planting plans and plant lists are not secret, unlike with most other designers he publishes them both in books and online.

Piet’s planting plan for Vitra Campus, in southwest Germany.Ĭassian Schmidt Director of Hermannshof garden, Germany

Oudolf piet