Wolfgang Oehme, in partnership with James Van Sweden, has been one of the most influential garden designers of the last thirty years. Together they have spearheaded the revolutionary garden style known as the New American Garden. Encompassing the simple beauty and grandeur of the prairie, the New American Garden is defined by large sweeps of herbaceous perennials and grasses, in contrast to such previous conventions as vast sterile lawns, clipped shrubs and annuals.
This book is the first to chronicle the professional journey of Wolfgang Oehme. From his childhood in war torn Germany and his postwar forays around Europe, the scene shifts to the eastern US and Oehme's remarkable career as a garden designer, his highly successful partnership with James van Sweden with their landscape architecture firm Oehme, van Sweden & Associates, Inc., and ultimately to his successful solo projects in his German homeland and the US.
Lauded as a 'garden book of the year' in the original German edition, the book is bursting with dreamlike gardens, original drawings and observations.Of considerable interest to gardeners wishing to follow Oehme's lead, a final section illustrates a selection of 'Wolfi plants', the most beloved and characteristic ingredients of this great designer's work.
Gardens featured:
The Vollmer Garden: Baltimore, Maryland
The Federal Reserve Bank: Washington DC
Pennsylvania Avenue: Washington DC
The German-American Friendship Garden: Washington DC
Nelson A Rockefeller Park: Battery Park, New York
The Rosenberg Garden: Long Island, New York
Private gardens:
Long Island, New York##
Pennsylvania##
Virginia##
Maryland##
Chesapeake Bay#######
German public projects:
Magdeburg###
Chemnitz###
Bitterfeld
Stefan Leppert, born in 1959, trained as a gardener and worked in gardening and landscaping before studying landscape architecture at Osnabrueck, Lower Saxony; he went on to work as a garden and landscape architect in various design practices, then joined the "Garten + Landschaft" editorial team for five years. In 2001 he set up an editorial office in Munster and has contributed numerous articles on garden design and landscape architecture to magazines and books.
An authoritative chronicle of the work of one of America's most influential plantsmen, best known in the context of Oehme Van Sweden, the design duo who greened Canary Wharf and who helped to popularise prairie planting, the swathesof the perennials and grasses that now cloak our landscapes and gardens. Still a fiercely debated topic, the section on Oehme's favourite plants should at least settle some arguments over garden-worthy grasses. Daily Telegraph Not a guide to ornamental grasses but a chronicle of a famous maverick plantsman, there's much to enjoy. BBC Gardens Illustrated If you are a plant-aholic and cannot resist buying one of everything in the garden centre, Ornamental Grasses by Stefan Leppart could change your life. Limited Edition, South Worcestershire & Cotswolds A must for anyone who has a dull expanse of lawn and longs for something better. Irish News