Oudolf Garden Detroit

The flower garden of dreams

The Oudolf Garden Detroit designed by Piet Oudolf is a very modern mix. It is influenced by the layers of his earlier work yet more complex and intricate. Oudolf is the definition a modern artist; an open source designer, his planting plans are freely available for all to use online, and he works alone but is inspired by the creativity of others, designing in the realm of an amazing creative spirit.  

The Garden Club of Michigan is one of the oldest in the USA. It is a founding club of the National Garden Club of America, a network of gardening clubs across the populated by local gardeners and, on the east side of Detroit, it is where generations of mainly women gardeners have over decades, undertaken projects throughout Metro Detroit.

Detroit is a city that is emerging from decades of economic challenge, but with a history of strong curiosity, creativity, freedom and a huge design and architectural heritage. It is the only UNESCO city of design in the whole of the US.

With a recently refreshed membership and a wish to do a significant project for the city, six years ago members of the The Garden Club of Michigan decided they wanted to commission Piet to design a garden. Unsure how to contact him, they wrote him a letter and asked a contact, the filmmaker Thomas Piper (Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf), to get word through of their interest.

Piet was drawn to project via the garden’s eventual location and it’s central position. Belle Isle is a special place; in nature but also right in the heart of the city of Detroit.

The result is is Oudolf Garden Detroit, aka the flower garden of dreams. A prairie garden, rain garden and, soon, an additional wet meadow, it combines Piet’s signature block and matrix planting with his least thinking, all steep in hortus loci, a sense of the place.

In the prairie garden three repeating palettes fill fifteen curving beds, with a typicallyy Oudolfian emphasis on form, outline and combination. Eryngium yuccifolium, Echinops, Liatris pycnostachya, Pycnanthemum muticum and Perovskia ‘Blue Steel’ grow cheek-by-jowl, their silhouettes postbloom as important as their flowers. In six beds, a matrix of Sporobolus heterolepis, (prairie dropseed) is threaded with Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty,’ Salvia nemerosa ‘Mainacht’ and Salvia ‘Crystal Blue,’ to flower in late summer. An Oudolf signature plant, Sporobolus grass is also a Michigan native.

A matrix of Sporobolus heterolepis (praise dropseed) threaded with copper-red stalks of Iris sibirica ‘Perry’s Blue’, Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’, Allium carinatum var. pulchellum and the dusky, spent flower spikes of Salvia ‘Crystal Blue’. A pool of Pycnanthemum muticum (mountain mint) provides contrast and is useful for pollinators.

A soft haze of Achillea ‘Terracotta’ is matched with the whorled, drooping flowers of Echinacea pallida ‘Hula Dancer’ and the round, bobbled seedheads of Allium nigrum. Earlier in the year the allium has pale, architectural flowers. Perovskia ‘Little Spire’ is as useful for it’s upright habit as it is for it’s blue flowers in summer.

Balanced pools of Eupatorium hyssopifolium (in bud, in the foreground) and Scuttelaria incana provide a foil for the bold forms of Eryngium yuccifolium and Echinops ’Starfrost’

The beautiful, tall, pale blue flowers of Salvia azurea ’Nekan’ are paired with coppery orange Helenium ‘Helena Red Shades’ and the grass, Molinia ‘Crystal Veil’ in a textual contrast. Transparent and with good height, in late summer it is woven with Liatris pycnostachya and later it’s seedbeds. Both hold their forms throughout winter.

At the western end of the prairie garden is Oudolf’s new rain garden. Ubiquitous in south east Michigan, rain gardens are notoriously tricky to pull off as their plants must thrive in brief but complete flooding. Piet’s solution is one of of uncompromising beauty; a wet sedge matrix of Carex and Deschampsia woven with flowering trees and shrubs.

There are plans in place for a wet meadow-of-the-imagination; a romantic twist on a wetland using all Michigan natives and inspired by the existing seedbank onsite, replete with asters, solidago, sedges and woody plants and a boardwalk.

Over $4.7 million was eventually raised by the Oudolf Garden Detroit team for the installation and upkeep of the garden, the majority in donations each of under $100. Detroit has a legacy of philanthropy and the garden is worked by an all-volunteer crew.

This is community garden but of international significance, with a rockstar designer thinking on a global scale. Beautiful, forward-thinking and full of inspiration.

Block planting plan, Oudolf Garden Detroit, Piet Oudolf

Oudolf Garden Detroit

Photography Ryan Southen/Meredith Simpson

Piet Oudolf

With special thanks to Meredith Simpson, Oudolf Garden Detroit