Piet Oudolf given Lifetime Achievement Award at the SGD Awards 2019

Visionary garden designer, author and world-renowned plantsman Piet Oudolf has been granted the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Garden Designers at the annual SGD Awards Ceremony, where some of the best landscape and garden design projects were celebrated.

The Award, which is gifted by the Council of the Society of Garden Designers, is granted to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the landscape and garden design profession.

A specially commissioned, short film made with Piet Oudolf was shown at the SGD Awards Ceremony to mark the occasion. 

The SGD Council said: "From the age of 25, Piet has made a phenomenal contribution to new ways of thinking on naturalistic planting using grasses and herbaceous plants. Using all the sound principles of good Planting Design, Oudolf’s work sits comfortably in formal and informal settings, town and country, without losing any of the design integrity of structure and balance.

"From the Highline in New York to Pensthorpe Natural Park, from the Wisley borders to Olympic Park, Oudolf’s work is both impressive and intimate.  His determination to find out more about his ‘performers’ by opening up a nursery and astutely observing his palette at all stages of development has taken Planting Design to another level of horticultural science and experimentation and has launched a whole new appetite in the industry for a wide range of quality herbaceous plants.

"His plant combinations, brought to life through his seminal books written alongside Noel Kingsbury, have fast-tracked many a fledgling designer to add something quite magical to their projects and made his lifelong research accessible to others. Thank you Piet for your passion and generosity to our industry."

Images of all the winning gardens in the SGD Awards 2019 can be seen at www.sgdawards.com