Piet Oudolf on Writing With Plants

For more than half a century, the Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf has been reimagining what a garden can be. Known for his richly layered, naturalistic plantings, Oudolf, now 82, approaches his work much like a composer or stage director, bringing together plants of different forms, textures, and personalities to create landscapes that are at once meticulously orchestrated and seemingly wild. His gardens—from New York City’s High Line and Chicago’s Lurie Garden to Oudolf Field at Hauser &amp; Wirth Somerset and Calder Gardens in Philadelphia—are living works of art, evolving not only through the seasons, but over years and decades.&nbsp;For our latest “site-specific” episode of Time Sensitive, Oudolf joined us in his new Planting Fields Foundation garden in Oyster Bay, New York. Surrounded by buzzing bees, birdsong, and the occasional overhead plane, he talks with Spencer about the delicate interplay between control and letting go, the importance of close observation, and what gardens teach us about life, mortality, and change.&nbsp;Special thanks to our Season 14 presenting partner, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts, supported by Van Cleef &amp; Arpels.Show Notes:&nbsp;Piet Oudolf[00:53] Planting Fields[06:58] Olmsted Brothers[8:19] Calder Gardens[14:40] Oudolf Field[16:15] Iwan and Manuela Wirth[17:16] Chillida Leku[17:23] Il Giardino delle Vergini for the Venice Biennale (2010)[17:23] Hans Ulrich Obrist[31:02] Hummelo[35:17] Dream Plants for the Natural Garden (2000)[35:17] Henk Gerritsen[36:00] New Perennial Movement[43:29] Music for 18 Musicians: Staged Variations[43:29] Steve Reich&nbsp;[46:32] John Berger&nbsp;[46:32] Ways of Seeing (1972)[50:08] Bloomsbury Group[52:13] Peter Zumthor&nbsp;[52:13] Herzog &amp; de Meuron[52:13] James Corner of Field Operations[52:13] Diller Scofidio + Renfro[55:31] Lurie Garden[55:31] The Battery</u