On the eve of the spring-summer season, each owner of a suburban area has a great desire to ennoble and transform his land to the best of his abilities, desires and understanding of what is beautiful. But how to arrange a piece of land if the “hundredths” are just barely enough and is it possible to make a fashionable garden on them?
The advice of the most influential gardener of our time, Piet Oudolf, is appreciated by clients in America and Europe. His landscape has thousands of followers in the world. A garden in the style of Piet Oudolf has also become popular among Russians: land owners want to see a garden in its natural state, albeit man-made, but without a hint of artificiality, such an eco-garden, designed in a natural, natural style.
Piet Oudolf was born in 1944 in Haarlem, a town in the north of Holland. In his youth, he worked as a bartender, waiter, steelworker, went to sea on a fishing boat. At the age of 26, he got a job as a laborer in a nursery, fell in love with plants, and after 4 years was educated as a landscape designer. English gardens were popular at the time.
Piet Oudolf said: “The English garden has nothing to do with ecology - it requires constant care. He dictates what needs to be done every minute, every day, every week. When you need to fertilize the lawn, remove faded inflorescences, tie up plants. He only indicates what and when to do, and does not say: "Look at what is growing in you." As a designer, I found this very unfortunate." Pete began to use cereals, perennials and flowers in his landscaping. Over time, he established his own nursery and began experimenting with plant crossings. Now he has about 70 new plants on his account.
He created many gardens around the world: in Holland, Germany, Sweden, Britain, the USA, but his own garden in the Netherlands is the most famous, the ideal state of which is the merit not only of Pete, but also of his wife Anja Oudolf. This garden skillfully combines landscape and regular planning methods, traditional and modern methods of organizing space.
In design, Pete favors perennial grasses over shrubs and trees. He explains this by saying that they are more decorative, even when it's time to die. They are more dynamic in their development and this inconstancy creates the mood of the garden. The garden is filled with emotions and has a soul. It is like a mirror: any changes in nature should be reflected in the garden. Pete chooses hardy varieties for fear of invading plants. It is important that the plants develop freely and "enter" each other's territory, while not destroying their neighbors. Thus, a living landscape is created, a real natural garden.
To be sure, new wave gardening does not offer a garden that can grow unattended. It also requires top dressing, transplanting and other care. But the main goal is achieved - the selected plants reveal their potential to the maximum in the conditions that were offered to them, and they practically do not get sick. Not only the appearance, but especially the seasonal development of perennial plants determine the harmony of the garden. Piet Oudolf selects a small number of plants, working with arrays of the same species. This creates simplicity, readability of the composition, while maintaining spectacularity. But, with this approach, it is necessary to carefully calculate all the factors and deliberately choose plants, since it is necessary that they be decorative for a long time, sometimes the whole season. “Even a combination of arrays of two types of plants can look impressive. But to make the right choice, you need to know a lot of plants. Because if you use only two or three types of plants and make the wrong choice, they will fade over the weekend, quickly lose their decorative effect or die. It will be chaos and you will fail as a designer.”
“I think in horizontals and verticals, in transitions and gaps. This is my type of thinking. Of course, color is also important. But if you are designing, then first of all, you need to sketch out the shape. Even similar shapes in different colors create depth of planting. In one of my gardens in Sweden, sage in various shades creates perspective.”
“Complexity is achieved through repetitive spots that set the rhythm. Landing must be readable, otherwise its complexity does not make sense.
Pete is well aware that the beauty of the garden is in the eternal renewal and rebirth, and not in the fleeting moments of its heyday. Each season, he allows himself to enjoy the perfect cycle of herbs and flowers, from tender sprouts that wake up in early spring, to flowering, fruiting and withering. Unlike traditional gardens, where careful removal of dead leaves, flowers and similar "garbage" is practiced, the decorative properties of fruits, seeds, dry foliage of cereals and other plants are widely used in the Oudolf garden.
Piet Oudolf's style turned out to be ideal for modern cities. Imitations of meadow thickets look great next to the architecture.
“Thanks to plants, architecture becomes proportionate to man. In contrast, the plants change every day and evoke a lively response,” says Oudolf.
And he is undoubtedly right.
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