Wolfgang Oehme, Free-Form Landscape Architect, Dies at 81 Wolfgang Oehme, a landscape architect who drew from a palette of feathery grasses and black-eyed Susans to create what he called "horticultural explosions," free-form landscapes that some called exemplars of "the new American garden," died on Dec. 15 at his home in Towson, Md. The cause was colon cancer, said his son, Roland. "I like it wild," said Mr. Oehme (pronounced EHR-ma), describing how he marshaled masses of meadowlike grasses and perennials to evoke the feeling of ocean waves. He called the effect a metaphor for the great prairies of the West. For 30 years, Mr. Oehme teamed up with James van Sweden to develop self-sustaining gardens, free of pesticides, that could remain beautiful even as the seasons changed. They planted flowers and bushes not by threes and fives, but by the thousands. Details, like how the wind would move the leaves of different plant species, were studied meticulously. Water, whether trickling or in reflecting pools, became a hallmark. Their work graced embassies, universities and private homes, including Oprah Winfrey's. In Washington, it can be seen at the Treasury Department, the National Gallery of Art, the National Arboretum and the Federal Reserve building. In New York, they created pieces of Battery Park City and Hudson River Park. Their work extended to Minneapolis and West Virginia. In effect, they revolted against the American lawn, which traditionally opened to the street with bushes around the house. Mr. Oehme and Mr. van Sweden put big plants in front of a property to create secluded space, which they filled with carefully plotted but unclipped plantings. Mr. Oehme abhorred the ever-popular azalea, arguing that it flowered for just two weeks before becoming a boring green bush. Grasses, he noted with approval, change with the seasons and can look striking in winter. This approach put the two designers at the forefront of a naturalistic horticultural movement that attracted rubrics like the "new American garden" and the "new romantic garden." Allen Lacy, a garden author, wrote in The New York Times Home Design Magazine in 1988: "Dramatically unlike anything ever seen in America, theirs is truly a garden for all seasons." Wolfgang Walter Oehme was born on May 18, 1930, in Chemnitz, Germany, and began planting things at 5. At 17, he apprenticed in a nursery, then moved on to the parks department of Bitterfeld, Germany, where he became interested in landscape design. He graduated from the University of Berlin in 1954 with a degree in landscape architecture. He worked on large projects for the Frankfurt parks department and for nurseries in Germany, Sweden and England. In 1957, he left what had become Communist East Germany to come to the United States, settling in Baltimore, which he soon deemed a horticultural desert. He later wrote, "I went on a crusade." He designed parks, playgrounds and golf courses for the Baltimore parks department and, on his own, did work at private residences. In 1964, Mr. van Sweden, then an urban planner, saw a garden Mr. Oehme had designed in Washington. "I had never seen such a beautiful garden in my life," he wrote. I knew right then that Wolfgang Oehme was somebody to grapple with, to be involved with. They started their firm, Oehme, van Sweden & Associates, in 1977. Mr. Oehme retired in 2008. Mr. Oehme's marriage to Shirley Zinkhan, who is now Omi Oehme May, ended in divorce in 2004. In addition to his son, he is survived by a grandson. Mr. Oehme's favorite way to celebrate a birthday was to have friends join him for a "weeding party." He liked to eat weeds, especially dandelions, while he worked.