Wolfgang Oehme

Wolfgang Oehme (May 18, 1930 Chemnitz, Saxony – December 15, 2011, Towson, Maryland) was a German landscape architect.

Oehme grew up in Wissmannhof in Chemnitz. Oehme left school in 1947 and began an apprenticeship at the nursery Illge. After completing his apprenticeship he worked in urban garden office, where he was a landscape architect with Hans-Joachim Bauer, and with the ideas of Karl Foerster, was familiar. From 1952 he worked at the nursery Spaeth in Baumschulenweg in East Berlin.

Oehme studied from 1952 to 1954 in Dahlem with a scholarship in landscape architecture. In 1953, he helped on the site of the International Garden Festival in Old Elbpark in Hamburg to create trenches. He admired the designer of the Expo, Karl Plomin. Oehme moved in 1953 to West Berlin. After graduation, he worked in the nursery, Waterer Sons & Crisp in Bagshot and then got a job with the city parks department in Frankfurt am Main. From 1956 he was employed by the company Delius in Nuremberg. Oehme, a great admirer of the works of Karl May emigrated in 1957 on the recommendation of Hubert Owens from Nuremberg to the United States after Christmas. After stops in Ireland, Iceland and Newfoundland, he landed at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Initially, he worked for the landscape architect Bruce Baetjer before 1959 in the Baltimore County Office of Planning and was hired by the Baltimore County Recreation and Parks as a landscape architect. He designed, among other things, playgrounds and golf courses. In 1966 he joined the firm Rouse Co. and designed gardens with ornamental grasses and perennials, but without lawns. His work was difficult because there were hardly any nurseries that sell plants suitable. With the help of Leo Vollmer, and partner Kurt Bluemel, he found a nursery that could provide appropriate plants. In 1977, Oehme and the American landscape architect Sweden James created his own firm in Washington, D.C., Oehme, van Sweden & Associates (OvS). In 2008 he retired from the company and founded, with Carol Oppenheimer, the WOCO Organic Gardens LLC.

He often went to Germany to buy plants and botanical gardens, and visited the national garden shows. He also smuggled, hidden in a hollowed-out book, seeds in the United States, since the selection of ornamental plants here was initially very limited. Even relatives in Germany sent him seeds. In his later years he became increasingly eccentric, his lack of feeling for finances led to conflicts within the company.

Oehme was married to Shirley Zinkhan, the marriage ended in divorce in 2004. From the marriage was a son, Roland Oehme. Oehme died at the age of 81 from stomach cancer.

The English Garden Author Noel Kingsbury describes Oehme as a loner, the only its gardens were important. He relates how Oehme visited a garden designed by him and impatiens ran away, who had planted the owner, but displeased him. When asked about this, he said: "This is my garden, not yours!".

Oehme was a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects. In 1992, he received the "Landscape Design Award" from the American Horticultural Society, 2002, the George Robert White Medal of Honor, and the 2011 Longhouse Award. He taught at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Georgia

• with James Van Sweden: Gardening with Water: How James van Sweden and Wolfgang Oehme build and plant Fountains, swimming pools, Lily Ponds, water edges. Random House, New York 1994. ISBN 0-679-42946-8.
• with James Van Sweden: Bold Romantic Gardens. The New World Landscapes of Oehme van Sweden. (Photos by Susan Rademacher Fry). Spacemaker Press, Washington D.C. 1998. ISBN 1-888931-10-8.
• James van Sweden: Gardening with Nature: How James van Sweden and Wolfgang Oehme Plant Slopes, Meadows, Outdoor Rooms and Garden Screens. Random House, New York 1997. ISBN 0-679-42947-6.
• John Greenlee and Derek Fell: The Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses: How to grow and use over 250 beautiful and versatile Plants Rodale Books. Emmaus, 1992, ISBN 0-87596-100-2.