Serenity in the Garden

My new book Floratopia is out! I am so happy to finally be able to share flower garden design ideas with everyone. I have been working with annual and perennial flowers in all my landscape projects for decades and yet I wrote about everything but flowers.  Odd. Well, that has now been corrected. I have amassed a collection of flower tips accompanied by my photos and categorized them in 6 sections in the book.  Osteospermum Serenity Series Why did I write this book? Here is an excerpt from my introduction: "Flowers are such an important part of our living world—offering food and habitat to our threat-  ened pollinators such as bees, birds, butterflies, and more. That is why I chose to write about  flowers and flower garden design. I have worked with flowers as a landscape designer and  horticulturist all my adult life, and I know how wonderful it is to open the door to the sight of  colorful blooms in the garden. More important, I believe we need flower gard...

The “meadow planting” style of gardening that is so popular now includes plants from various German breeders. Of course you can plant the original native species to help our pollinators...  Click on the links in the captions for more information. Karl Foerster bred tall, hardy plants suited to the northern European climate.  He  called grasses “Mother Nature’s hair”  and one of his best known and popular plants is the strongly vertical  Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster’ (a form of feather-reed grass). Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass Karl Foerster feather reed grass in background. Sedum Matrona on right. Ernst Pagels  developed new varieties of Miscanthus sinensis .   Piet Oudolf was a friend of Pagels and uses his plants, among others .  Pagels developed Miscanthus sinensis 'Malepartus' which looks like Pampas grass but blooms in midsummer so people in cooler climates can enjoy the bloom.  Hoffman ...

Lamb's Ear  One of my assignments to my graduate students in the landscape design program at Columbia University was to take a  paragraph  from the book, ' The Hidden Dimension' by Edward T. Hall and share a personal experience related to the topic of the selected excerpt. 'The Hidden Dimension' is a time honored classic on the role of spatial understanding in  culture . The following is an essay that the talented designer,  Yuliya Bellinger, wrote. I think it is so lovely and wanted to share it with you. Simple is beautiful.   TEXTURE in the Garden By Yuliya Bellinger “Texture, about which I have said very little, is appraised and appreciated almost entirely by touch, even when it is visually presented. With few exceptions …it is the memory of tactile experiences that enable us to appreciate texture. So far, only a few designers have paid much attention to the importance of texture and its use in architecture is largely haphazar...

Are you feeling a little down? depressed? Well here is a way to fix that -  go out and plant something... Studies have found that an hour of gardening a day reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke and increases bone density more efficiently than aerobics or swimming! In fact, even looking at nature can result in a drop in blood pressure within five minutes and lower our stress hormones. One 16-year study in Australia revealed that those who did daily gardening even cut their risk of getting dementia in later life.    (Gardening boosts endorphins, the body’s good-mood chemicals. Personally, my theory is that we need the sunlight on our pineal gland and this can delay dementia, but I have no proof, its just a 'knowing') Here is a lovely story from  Timesonline United Kingdom,  dated March 27, 2010 "...Jane Robertson was earning a small fortune in the pressured world of derivatives markets when she had a breakdown at the age ...

'Milkshake' Coneflower I am a kind word uttered and repeated  By the voice of Nature;  I am a star fallen from the  Blue tent upon the green carpet.  allium by Jan Johnsen I am the daughter of the elements  With whom Winter conceived;  To whom Spring gave birth; I was  Reared in the lap of Summer and I  Slept in the bed of Autumn.  At dawn I unite with the breeze  To announce the coming of light;  At eventide I join the birds  In bidding the light farewell.  NY Botanical Garden - Jan Johnsen The plains are decorated with  My beautiful colors, and the air  Is scented with my fragrance.  As I embrace Slumber the eyes of  Night watch over me, and as I  Awaken I stare at the sun, which is  The only eye of the day.  Profusion zinnias - Jan Johnsen I drink dew for wine, and hearken to  The voices of the birds, and danc...

Its 92 degrees outside. Sweltering. The air hangs like heavy drapes upon the landscape. There is no breeze. The garden quietly endures. So what can you do to lighten the oppressive atmosphere? ADD A BUBBLING URN -  a  recirculating water feature Japanese style bubbling urn by Jan Johnsen Why do this? Because the sound of water and its dynamic presence ( ask the great Dr. Emoto) add life and energy to a stultifying summer garden...  Bubbling urns and fountains bring sparkle to your garden. You can build a recirculating water fountain cheaply by buying parts in a hardware store or more expensively by going to a pond supplies vendor....I am not good at hardware so I buy kits. aquascape Bubbling Urns are set atop an underground reservoir that keeps re-circulating the water. Once the urn fills with water, the water spills over into the underground basin, which pumps the water back up through the urn. aquascape flavio website...

stone bench by Johnsen Landscapes & Pools  In the summer, gardens in my part of the world, are a tangle of foliage, flowers and dense tree canopies. We know we should start cutting back, limbing up or clearing out the overgrowth but what we really want to do is sit in the cool shade and drink a glass of iced tea. Stone Bench by  Johnsen Landscapes & Pools What better contrast to the green lushness that surrounds you than a stone seat or bench, grounded and cool to the touch! Stone seats in the garden have a storied history. The Druids of Northern Europe fashioned stone chairs out of boulders. It is thought that they were used for rituals and perhaps coronations of a sort. Today, in the British Isles and in France, you can find ancient stone seats in fields, woods and near sacred springs. See some great stone benches at the  Stonepost  website Sunny Wieler, an Irish stonemason / artist, follows in his ancestors' tradition a...