I was at a festival screening in the Netherlands with Peter Veenstra from Lola Landscape Architects (one of these “partners” Piet works with on European projects) and someone in the audience asked “is Piet very controlling to work with?” He answered that when it comes to the plants, Piet is absolute. He’s developed close professional relationships with landscape designers and contractors in the various places he works and he really relies on them to handle all of the work outside of the planting design. Tom: That’s something he’s worked really hard to keep as “pure” as possible, so he’s much more protective of. Terrain: What did your time spent with Piet illuminate about his creative process? People often joke that plants are Piet’s best friends, but the fact is he loves to share his experiences too. All the “road trips” in the film are great examples, where Piet would let me know he was planning a trip to visit White Clay Creek in Pennsylvania with Rick Darke, or traveling across West Texas in part to see the spring wildflowers there. But Piet was the opposite - he would contact me all the time to alert me for what might be interesting to shoot. Typically with documentary subjects, there’s a lot of chasing after them in hopes of not missing important moments to capture. Tom Piper: Working with Piet on this film was really like no other subject I’ve worked with. Terrain: What was it like to work closely with Piet? We’d love to know more about your time spent with him. I think that is especially illuminating for audiences. And while it’s decidedly not an “instructional” film, I did focus on capturing the creative process in a very raw way, both the inspirations for his creativity and the working process itself. Being able to condense an entire year down into a roughly an hour, I knew it would really exaggerate how interesting his gardens are at any time of year, not just the peak of summer. And one of my original intentions with the film was to show how well his gardens perform in every season. Tom Piper: The film follows Piet and a number of his gardens through five consecutive seasons. Terrain: Can you give us a short overview of Five Seasons? Ahead of the screenings, we had the chance to chat with Tom Piper, the film’s director, to get a behind-the-scenes take on what went into making Five Seasons, what surprised him most about the gardening audience, and how he felt when he experienced his first Piet Oudolf landscape.
And now we have the opportunity to see them all - and more! - during two separate screenings of Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf at both Styer’s and Devon. From New York’s High Line to a personal garden in the Netherlands, a wooded valley in rural Pennsylvania to a wildflower field in the midwest, Piet Oudolf’s dream-like landscapes are revered destinations for garden enthusiasts all over the globe.
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