A 'wild' tribute takes root in New York City

"Down to earth" aptly describes landscape designer and nurseryman Piet Oudolf. A big man with ruddy face and a floppy hank of white hair, Mr. Oudolf looks like a Dutch Carl Sandburg.

Known for designing gardens and public parks throughout Europe as well as for his work as a plant breeder at his nursery in Hummelo, the Netherlands, Oudolf is now transplanting his distinctive vision to the United States. He is the author of three gardening books that have been quite popular in the US. And now he is designing a "tribute garden" to those who died in the World Trade Center attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Oudolf has been commissioned to produce a master horticultural plan for the 23-acre park known as The Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan.

The first step will be his design for the Gardens of Remembrance, 10,000 square feet along the waterfront, scheduled for unveiling in June.

"These gardens are not a 'memorial,' " emphasizes Warrie Price, president of The Battery Conservancy. Instead, they are "a tribute" to those who lost their lives, to the survivors, and "to all who will visit in the years to come seeking renewed optimism and hope for the future."

Oudolf was in Chicago planning a "millennium garden" for that city when the terrorist attacks occurred. "I felt all the emotions Americans had," he says. "I felt what it is to be struck by terrorists."

His biggest challenge with the Gardens of Remembrance is "to make it attractive so people want to sit down and contemplate. It should be dramatic, dynamic, with seasonal interest, and an atmosphere where you stay longer and see more."

How will he do that?

Oudolf conceives the urban park as pseudo-wilderness. His strategy involves planting wildflowers, perennials, and ornamental grasses in a layered collage for what he calls year-round drama.

"He has this very distinctive look, a nearly wild look with grasses and informal, large drifts of plants," says Lynden B. Miller, who has designed public gardens in New York for 20 years.

This "perennial perspective" has been flowering for some time in European public parks and gardens designed by Oudolf in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Britain.

But this combination of perennial flowers mixed with swaths of ornamental grasses isn't just confined to public spaces in Europe. It's very similar to the natural look practiced in this country by Washington, D.C., landscape architects Wolfgang Oehme and James van Sweden.

It's considered a bold, romantic look that is interesting not only in warm weather but every month of the year.

A man for all seasons, Oudolf appreciates the shapes and textures of plants - what he calls their "character" - even when they're dormant. "You want the garden to be attractive 12 months a year," he says. "We emphasize not the flowering periods only, but the 'long experience' of a garden."

Emphasizing the shape and texture of a plant reveals that some are attractive even when they're not flowering or after they've finished flowering.

"Some have a nice skeleton, a nice leaf, or seedhead," he points out. "You have to develop your eye to appreciate unconventional forms of beauty like desiccated seedpods."

"[Oudolf] has a true appreciation of plants as they change through the seasons," says Ms. Price of The Battery Conservancy, who adds, "It's a four-dimensional way of dealing with the landscape," where the fourth dimension is time.

"I don't have a philosophy of landscape design," Oudolf insists. "It's just that I have my eyes open."

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