Florist Pete Udolph, known as the XNUMXst century master gardener, creates wild landscapes, but every detail is carefully thought out.
The gardens of the Dutch florist and landscape designer Pete Udolph are called wild and sometimes spontaneous. However, behind this seeming chaos lies a long-term work of a researcher who began to develop his own garden style in the distant 70s. Pete Udolph opened his first gardening company in the Netherlands in 1977, and in 1982 he settled with his family in the village of Hummelo, where he laid his own garden, where he was engaged not only in developing approaches to composition, but also in the selection of wild crops.
Millennium Garden in Pentshorpe. Norfolk, England
Over the years, Pete has formalized his approach, realizing that he is not interested in geometrically and compositionally verified garden forms, he wants to let nature decide what the garden will look like. Before Udolph began to implement his revolutionary approach, gardens were mainly seasonal and were built around favorite cultures (for example, roses), after the flowering of which the composition loses its attractiveness and the garden ceases to function, pleasing to the eye.
Udolph became involved in the cultivation of wild crops. Observing them, he understood how to create flower beds that are always pleasing to the eye, because some plants, fading away, can give way to others, serve as a background for them and complement the picture. Pete even refused to cut the plants that had faded – the florist saw a special beauty in the dried shoots and withered inflorescences. For those who do not see this beauty, the revolutionary gardener advises to look deeper, perceiving the garden as a picture of life in all its manifestations.
Udolph’s garden just seems wild. In fact, the plants are carefully selected to maintain a well-groomed appearance all year round.
Over the years, Pete Udolph has developed over 70 species of plants and laid out many luxurious gardens, which have immortalized his name during his lifetime. Recognition came to the master in the early 2000s, when he was invited to organize flower beds in the Lurie Garden in the Millennium Park in Chicago. So at the foot of the Chicago skyscrapers a completely atypical garden appeared, consisting of 26 thousand wild and cereal plants, reminiscent of a real wild prairie in the middle of a metropolis.
Lurie Garden at Millennium Park in Chicago
A similar park was laid out by Udolph in Manhattan – the Garden of Remembrance in Battery Park. From 2009 to 2014, the famous gardener also worked on landscaping another landmark in New York – the abandoned High Line railway line, which runs along the West Side at a height of ten meters. Over 2 km of the boardwalk was planted by Udolph with his favorite grasses and field plants. As a result, the master managed to create an oasis of wildlife in the very center of the city. Pete himself believes that this garden perfectly symbolizes his most important idea – the victory of nature over the industrial world.
Udolph’s Garden on the High Line in New York. Summer
Of course, it is not so easy for a Russian to appreciate the charm of Pete Udolph’s “wild gardens” – these “prairies” very much resemble the real gardens of the Russian hinterlands. However, the artificial spontaneity of the famous gardener’s pen should not be confused with real thickets, which are the result of the lack of basic plant care. In the gardens of a Dutch florist, despite the seeming spontaneity, each composition is thought out – the plants are selected in shape, color, flowering season, due to which a certain color scheme and mood of the garden is created at different times of the year.
Interview
Do you like Pete Udolph’s “wild” gardens?
I have such “prairies” under the window grow for free!
Very nice and harmonious. With seeming simplicity …
The pictures are beautiful, but in life I am dearer to the classic seasonal gardens with roses