Immersive and spectacular: Piet Oudolf’s new borders at RHS Wisley reviewed

Piet Oudolf’s long borders at Wisley were worn out. The famous designer had in fact become a bit embarrassed by them: they’d done well for 20 years but in that time his own style had evolved – and so had people’s tastes.

Oudolf is now such a household name that his pointillist landscaping is considered fine art on paper, let alone when actually planted up. (There are weighty coffee-table books exploring his art.) But the long borders had become, well, just borders, on either side of a long grassy walk up the hill from the Wisley glasshouses. Many of the people who visit Wisley for a walk – rather than to peer at plants – were perfectly capable of ignoring the whole lot.

So this year, the Royal Horticultural Society ripped it all up and got Oudolf to design them a new two-acre space.