It’s Time to Plan Your Spring Garden!

Jan Johnsen signs books at the O’Hara Nature Center in Irvington.

Noted local landscape designer and author Jan Johnsen delivered wheelbarrows of great advice at our January 2000 public event. She introduced her new book, Gardentopia: Design Basics for Creating Beautiful Outdoor Spaces.

Points she made included:

• A sheltered corner always lures visitors.
• Hide and reveal: There’s a mystery to what you can’t see, like what’s around that corner.
• The same for sun and shade: what’s in the shade is mysteriously and partially hidden.
• Use lightweight pieces; people like to move the furniture.
• Rounded forms are satisfying, especially when placed in front of straight edges, like pruned hedges.
• Hard-soft contrast is always interesting.
• Embrace the moss.
• Punctuate the garden with exclamation points like pillars, poles, tuteurs, and tall shrubs like Sky Pencil holly.

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Filed under Landscape and Garden Design