Piet Oudolf doesn’t design gardens that look alive only in summer. The Dutch landscape designer behind some of the world’s most celebrated naturalistic plantings, including New York’s High Line, believes a garden should have something to say in every season, including the quiet ones.

This lecture explores Oudolf’s approach to layering hardy perennials and ornamental grasses into landscapes that move with the wind, hold their structure through frost, and offer something worth looking at even in January. You’ll also hear about the ecological practices that keep these gardens healthy over time: thoughtful plant selection, low-intervention maintenance, and a commitment to biodiversity that goes beyond aesthetics.

Leading the conversation is Meredith Simpson, Chief Operating Officer of the Friends of the Oudolf Garden on Belle Isle. For the past nine years, she has helped build, plant, and steward one of the region’s most celebrated contemporary landscapes. She knows this design philosophy from the soil up.
Whether you tend a small backyard or a sprawling property, this talk will give you a new way of thinking about what a garden can be.