---
title: "Piet Oudolf, decoded: the six details I keep seeing in his gardens"
description: "My decode of seven Piet Oudolf gardens: crisp edges, see-through grasses, mauve in pinpricks, seedheads left standing, multi-stem trees and the view kept, and how to try each at home."
image: https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/Piet%20Oudolf%20Highline%20NYC%20Everything%20But.png
---

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- [DECODE](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/tag/decode)
- [MUSINGS](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/tag/musings)
- [KNOW-HOW](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/know-how)
- [THE EDIT](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/the-edit)
- [ABOUT](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/about)

# Piet Oudolf, decoded: the six details I keep seeing in his gardens

[Everything But](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/author/everything-but)

[OUT /aʊt/ adv.](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/tag/out-aʊt-adv), [Decode](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/tag/decode)

![](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/Piet%20Oudolf%20Highline%20NYC%20Everything%20But.png)

Grasses, seedheads and a haze of mauve. Piet Oudolf makes gardens that look as if they planted themselves, and still look good in February.

I looked across seven of his gardens to see why they work so well when they’re mostly brown.

AD | This article links to an Edit with affiliate links. I may earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you.

The six details

Six details, each with what I’d do at home. Tap one to jump to it.

![Piet Oudolf, decoded: six details as six illustrated cards. A crisp circle with grasses inside, fine grass stems across a circle, a circle with a single mauve dot, two seedheads on tall stems, a rounded canopy on three stems, and a window with grasses along the bottom.](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Decode/Oudolf/oudolf-summary-six-details.png?width=1200&height=1340&name=oudolf-summary-six-details.png)

[01Wild needs a hard edge](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/piet-oudolf-decoded#detail-01) [02Look through, not at](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/piet-oudolf-decoded#detail-02) [03The brown makes the mauve](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/piet-oudolf-decoded#detail-03) [04Don’t tidy up too soon](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/piet-oudolf-decoded#detail-04) [05Think stems, not trunks](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/piet-oudolf-decoded#detail-05) [06Keep the view](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/piet-oudolf-decoded#detail-06)

## The idea

Piet Oudolf came to plants late. He grew up in his parents’ bar and restaurant and only turned to gardening at 25, knowing nothing about plants. In 1982 he and his wife, Anja, moved to Hummelo in the east of the Netherlands to grow perennials that were hard to find, and the garden they made there changed how a generation plants. He chooses plants for how they die as much as for how they flower, and he still draws his plans by hand, in colour, on big sheets of paper.

Rather than try to cover everything, I picked seven of his gardens: the High Line in New York, the Gräflicher Park at Bad Driburg, Leuvehoofd on the Rotterdam waterfront, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Maggie’s at the Royal Marsden in Sutton, Chillida Leku in the Basque Country and RHS Wisley, which he redesigned in 2024. Then I measured the colour in their summer photographs.

Every garden left me remembering mauve. In the photographs, it averages 1.5% of the picture. The secret isn’t the flowers. It’s everything around them.

This is my decode of his work from the outside looking in. You may well see his gardens differently.

The designer

Piet Oudolf

Garden and planting designer, Hummelo, the Netherlands

[oudolf.com](https://oudolf.com)

The book

*Planting: A New Perspective*, with Noel Kingsbury (Timber Press, 2013)

[Shop my Edit, inspired by Piet Oudolf →](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/the-piet-oudolf-edit)

## The details

01

### Wild needs a hard edge

Oudolf’s planting looks loose, but the edges never are. Concrete planks on the High Line, black steel at Wisley, perfectly mown circles at Bad Driburg, dark stone kerbs in Rotterdam. The hard line tells you the wildness is meant.

At home

One clean edge along the front of a border: steel, a mown strip or a line of bricks.

This is one of the two details I’d use in my own garden. A crisp edge is the simplest way to make loose planting look intended, whatever the size of the plot.

![Wild needs a hard edge: a crisp circle with grasses rising inside its lower edge](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Decode/Oudolf/oudolf-detail-01-edge.png?width=300&height=375&name=oudolf-detail-01-edge.png)

02

### Look through, not at

The airiest plants go at the front, not the back. Fine grasses float over the beds at Hauser & Wirth; at Chillida Leku, white persicaria spikes stand in front of the pink eupatorium. You look through the planting rather than at it, so a border becomes layers, not a wall.

At home

Three clumps of one see-through grass, such as Molinia ‘Transparent’, repeated along the front.

This is the other one I’d use at home. One see-through grass, repeated, gives even a small border its layers, without needing a field.

![Look through, not at: fine grass stems drawn across a circle](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Decode/Oudolf/oudolf-detail-02-veil.png?width=300&height=375&name=oudolf-detail-02-veil.png)

03

### The brown makes the mauve

Every garden left me remembering pinkish purple: asters, agastache, persicaria, echinacea. In the summer photographs I measured, mauve averages 1.5% of the picture and never more than 3.5%. Not one of the seven main colours in any garden is mauve. They’re greens, straws and browns, with a warm spark of red or gold smaller still.

A mauve flower on its own is just a flower. Set it among grasses and seedheads and it becomes the thing you remember.

At home

One mauve plant, repeated three or four times through a green border.

![The brown makes the mauve: a pale circle with one small mauve dot and a smaller rust dot](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Decode/Oudolf/oudolf-detail-03-mauve.png?width=300&height=375&name=oudolf-detail-03-mauve.png)

04

### Don’t tidy up too soon

The garden’s second season starts when the flowers fade. Echinacea cones, phlomis whorls and grasses stay standing, catching frost and feeding the birds. At Hauser & Wirth, the winter photograph is as good as the summer ones.

At home

Leave the grasses and the best seedheads standing until late winter, and tidy anything that collapses.

![Don't tidy up too soon: two seedheads on tall stems](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Decode/Oudolf/oudolf-detail-04-seedhead.png?width=300&height=375&name=oudolf-detail-04-seedhead.png)

05

### Think stems, not trunks

Height comes from small trees and shrubs with several stems rather than one trunk: redbud on the High Line, smoke bush at Wisley, Japanese maples at Chillida Leku. They give height without heavy shade, and autumn colour on top. At Bad Driburg he adds none, because the park’s old trees already do the job.

At home

One multi-stem amelanchier or birch, or a smoke bush kept to shrub size.

![Think stems, not trunks: a rounded canopy on three stems](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Decode/Oudolf/oudolf-detail-05-stems.png?width=300&height=375&name=oudolf-detail-05-stems.png)

06

### Keep the view

None of it hides the setting. The High Line keeps its city, Leuvehoofd faces the river, and the Hauser & Wirth field runs straight into Somerset farmland. Where there’s art, he leaves it room: the sculpture lawn at Chillida Leku stays plain grass. The planting frames what’s there instead of shutting it out.

At home

Leave one gap in the border that lines up with the best view from the house.

![Keep the view: a window with grasses along the bottom](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Decode/Oudolf/oudolf-detail-06-view.png?width=300&height=375&name=oudolf-detail-06-view.png)

## Where I saw them

Which details appear in which garden, and the colours of each. Four of the six turn up in all seven gardens and the other two in six. Mauve never takes more than 3.5% of the summer photographs.

![The six details I saw: a grid of seven Piet Oudolf gardens. A hard edge, see-through planting, mauve in pinpricks and the view kept appear in all seven. Seedheads left standing appear in six, all but the High Line. Multi-stem trees appear in six, all but Bad Driburg.](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Decode/Oudolf/oudolf-where-01-details.png?width=1200&height=760&name=oudolf-where-01-details.png)

![Seven gardens, a pinch of mauve: measured colour strips for seven Piet Oudolf gardens, all greens, straws and browns. Mauve takes between 0.2% and 3.5% of each.](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Decode/Oudolf/oudolf-where-02-palettes.png?width=1200&height=920&name=oudolf-where-02-palettes.png)

The gardens: the High Line, New York (public park, 2009), the Gräflicher Park, Bad Driburg (art commission, 2009), Leuvehoofd, Rotterdam (waterfront, 2010), Hauser & Wirth Somerset (gallery, 2014), Maggie’s at the Royal Marsden, Sutton (cancer support centre, 2019), Chillida Leku, Hernani (museum, 2019) and RHS Wisley, Surrey (borders 2000, redesigned 2024).

How I did this  I worked from the garden photographs and details on oudolf.com. For each garden I logged the details and named plants, and measured the colours in the summer photographs, because autumn and winter shots make the colour too muddy.

Why it works

It looks wild. Every inch of it is meant.

A crisp edge, a veil of grasses, a pinprick of mauve, seedheads left standing, a few small trees and the view kept open. None of it shouts. Look once and you see a meadow; look again and you find the edge, the repeat, the single colour threaded through.

## Could I live with it?

In a huge open space, absolutely. At Hauser & Wirth or Wisley, with room for the drifts to run and a big sky behind them, nothing beats it.

I’m less sure it works in the average British garden. Most of us have a postage stamp, not a field, and the look depends on repetition: the same plants again and again, in swathes. Shrink it to a few square metres and the swathes become clumps, and the effect goes with them.

Then there’s the weather. The second season relies on seedheads standing crisp through winter. After weeks of damp, many of them don’t. They go soft and brown, and a border meant to look sculptural just looks soggy.

And it looks easier than it is. Those loose drifts take real work: dividing clumps every few years before they die out in the middle, pulling back the strong spreaders before they swamp their neighbours, replacing short-lived plants such as echinacea, and one big cut-back at the end of winter. Even his own garden at Hummelo, long established, needs two days’ work a week. Wild-looking isn’t the same as low-maintenance.

So I’d start small. Take the crisp edge and one see-through grass, choose plants that stand up to the wet, and leave the full Oudolf to the places with room for it.

My Edit, inspired by Piet Oudolf

My picks to try it at home.

My own picks, inspired by his gardens. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Piet Oudolf.

[SHOP MY EDIT →](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/the-piet-oudolf-edit)

LIKE THIS?

Interiors, gardens, useful ideas and things I’d genuinely want at home. The Edit lands every other Thursday.

## Questions

### How do I get the Piet Oudolf look for less?

Start small: one crisp edge along the front of a border, three clumps of one see-through grass and one mauve perennial repeated through it. Buy young plants in spring or autumn and let them bulk up; most of these perennials can be divided after a few years, so one plant soon becomes three. [My Edit, inspired by Piet Oudolf](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/the-piet-oudolf-edit), has picks to start with.

### What plants does Piet Oudolf use?

Long-lived perennials and grasses that age well: echinacea, asters, agastache, persicaria, eupatorium, sedum, phlomis and eryngium, with grasses such as molinia and calamagrostis. In the gardens I looked at, the same handful turn up again and again. Fewer kinds, more of each: a border of fifty different plants reads as a jumble. And don’t copy his plant lists wholesale. The High Line is planted largely with North American natives because it’s in New York.

### Will it work in a small garden?

Keep it simple. There’s no room for swathes, so pick one see-through grass and two or three perennials and repeat them along one crisp edge. Maggie’s in Sutton shows how it can work around a small building.

### Will it cope with a wet garden, or with Scotland?

Choose the tougher plants. Persicaria, eupatorium, asters, molinia and calamagrostis take wet, heavy ground in their stride. Agastache, eryngium and echinacea want sharp drainage and sulk through cold, wet winters, so keep them for a dry, sunny spot or leave them out. And buy from a local nursery: plants grown nearby are already used to your weather.

### Is it good for wildlife?

Mostly, yes. His gardens use little or no pesticide, and the standing seedheads give birds seed and shelter through winter. The catch is the big late-winter cut-back, which clears out the hollow stems some solitary bees nest in. Leave one patch standing until late spring and they’ll have somewhere to go.

### Won’t it look messy in winter?

In a damp winter, some of it will. Choose plants that stay upright in the wet, such as Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’, sedum and phlomis, and cut back anything that collapses. Next to a clean edge, what’s left standing looks intended.

### Where can I see Piet Oudolf’s gardens in the UK?

Hauser & Wirth Somerset, near Bruton, and RHS Wisley in Surrey are the easiest to visit, and both are worth seeing in late summer and again in winter. His own site, [oudolf.com](https://oudolf.com), has every project. For the long read, *Planting: A New Perspective*, written with Noel Kingsbury (Timber Press, 2013), explains how he puts a planting together.

Spotted a detail I’ve missed, or think I’ve got Oudolf wrong? Tell me on Instagram [@everythingbut.theedit](https://www.instagram.com/everythingbut.theedit/).

Garden details from [oudolf.com](https://oudolf.com). Illustrations by Everything But.

## Keep looking

### [![Kelly Wearstler, decoded | Everything But](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/look-decoded_featured-collage.png?width=303&height=202&name=look-decoded_featured-collage.png) Kelly Wearstler, decoded Six moves, any palette. Read it →](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/kelly-wearstler-decoded)

### [![Dimore Studio, decoded | Everything But](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/look-decoded-dimore_featured-collage.png?width=303&height=202&name=look-decoded-dimore_featured-collage.png) Dimore Studio, decoded Dark, warm and made to glow. Read it →](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/dimore-studio-decoded)

### [![Not everything in the garden needs watering | Everything But](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Main%20Images/Soller%20Balcony%20Horse%20Sculpture%20Mallorca%20Everything%20But.png?width=303&height=202&name=Soller%20Balcony%20Horse%20Sculpture%20Mallorca%20Everything%20But.png) Garden sculpture Not everything in the garden needs watering. Read it →](https://www.everythingbutthekitchensink.co.uk/blog/garden-sculpture)

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