A Landscape in Winter, Dying Heroically - New York Times Annotated

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Artfully Planned Decay

Piet Oudolf

“The skeletons of the plants are for me as important as the flowers.”

For Mr. Oudolf, in fact, the real test of a well-composed garden is not how nicely it blooms but how beautifully it decomposes. “It’s not about life or death,” he said, admiring the dark, twisting lines of the fennel. “It’s about looking good.”

His work has inspired an “ecology meets design” gardening movement called New Wave Planting by its followers

He has done the planting design for important new gardens in Millennium Park in Chicago and the Battery in New York, and for the park that will cover the elevated High Line rail bed in Lower Manhattan when it opens in September.

For a moment the sun came out, illuminating the pale grasses, and Mr. Oudolf gasped. He is very attentive to the ways that plants move with the breeze and catch light, and was clearly pleased with the results this afternoon.