Piet Oudolf, the acclaimed Dutch landscape designer, created the unique plant design for Calder Gardens. He is considered a founder of the New Perennial style, sometimes described as painting with plants. His naturalistic style goes beyond just flowers and incorporates the myriad ways in which plants change and evolve with seasons and over the years. Many of his best known designs turn on the juxtaposition of wild-seeming gardens and urban landscapes in such projects as the High Line and Battery Park in New York City and the Lurie Garden in Chicago.
He spoke to The Inquirer via Zoom from his home in the Netherlands.
Did you have an affinity for Alexander Calder’s art before you got involved in this project?
Oh yes. It’s a kind of art I have always liked. It was 40 or 50 years ago that I first saw it in Chicago. It has strong forms, strong color. I felt it was true art, but the feeling is really indescribable.
You’re considered one of the founders of the New Perennial movement in landscape design. Can you talk about what that is?
In 1982, my wife and I were in the Netherlands designing small private gardens. Then we were able to move into a derelict farmhouse with some land and start our own nursery, which was not easy. But it let us have more diversity of plants to choose from.
It’s hard to make distinctions about a plant being wild or native, because they are all part of the plant world. But we look beyond just the flower, the decoration, at more than what you usually see. We look at the seed pods, the stems and grasses, how the plants interact with birds and insects.
I think about how to put plants together and how they become part of a plant community. I use grasses and other plants people didn’t know as garden plants.
A classical garden is much more managed. You cut it back at a certain time, you keep different plants separated. It’s a more dogmatic approach.
But of course plants have to behave. They have to be part of a community of plants. So I choose plants with more clumping roots, for example, rather than spreading roots. You don’t want aggressive plants that will take over from all the others and leave you with just one thing growing.
Have you spent time at the site in Philadelphia as part of your work on Calder Gardens?
I’ve been there at least 10 times. I have to understand the climate, meet the growers.
Were there unexpected problems in the process?
The architects saw some problems that affected their design. But once they had a model, or a master plan, I could start working on the garden.
Once you saw the master plan, what ideas guided you in designing the gardens?
It was most important to create a space in which you could experience different environments. So we have a woodland garden, a meadow, a North American prairie, a robust border. We have a vestige garden, on the bottom floor, that’s surrounded by walls. The plants there will grow up the walls and surround you.
Our work has just begun. The building is [done], but the garden is always growing. By next fall, the end of next summer, it will be more fully grown. The climbers, the ephemerals will come in early spring. There will be rich butterfly life. People should go back at every time of year.
Some things will be cut back at the end of January, but that’s when the bulbs will emerge. You will see the garden in its winter clothes, just like a person.
The garden area of Calder Gardens is about 1 acre. How many types of plants will people see there, how many individual plants?
There are more than 250 varieties of plants and about 37,000 individual plants. The United States has so many good plants to choose from.
Are you closely involved in the planting process?
Well, I’ve made all the mistakes you can make, so I try to pass on what I know. But you have to depend on the people who take care of the plants. They will guide the gardens into the future.
Are you satisfied with the results?
Very much so. It’s not yet what it will be next year. It’s a pity some people can’t see it then.
I hope it will be an experience that people will want to go back to. They can take ideas back to their own gardens. And it can be a school model, a laboratory of knowledge — and of beauty.
Gardens are a metaphor for life — they give room for contemplation, they give energy, they give good spirits. They are an experience that is hard to define, because it’s different every time.
“The Magic of Calder Gardens” is produced with support from Lisa D. Kabnick and John H. McFadden. Editorial content is created independently of the project’s donors.
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