About this item
Expert tips and beautiful photography from a veteran landscaperWhether it's ten square feet or ten acres, a backyard is something everyone wants to use to their best advantage. No matter the size or shape, an outdoor green space can be transformed from a neglected or untamed patch of dirt and weeds into someplace magical. These tips are illustrated, specific, and bite-sized. Even the smallest changes turn a simple backyard into a photogenic sanctuary. For instance, plant flowers or lay down a walking path along a curve rather than a straight line, and trim hedges in a cascade to work with the natural slope of the lawn.Landscape and garden design expert Jan Johnsen provides more than 100 unique and eye-opening techniques for transforming one's humble garden into something far more elevated and impressive. Aiming to demystify and educate, Gardentopia is at once inspirational and instructive thanks to the author's 40 years of outdoor design experience and hard- earned knowledge. With gorgeous photos throughout, see the potential of your garden through the lens of an expert. 100 color photographs
About the Author
An engaging writer and speaker, Jan Johnsen has been in the landscape design and horticulture professions for over four decades. She has worked in Kenya, Japan, Hawaii and across the US. She was awarded the 2019 Award of Distinction by the Association of Professional Landscape Designers (APLD) . Her garden design book, Gardentopia - Design Basics for Creating Beautiful Outdoor Spaces (Countryman Press, 2019) joins her other books, Floratopia (Countryman Press, 2021) , Heaven is a Garden (St Lynn's Press, 2014) and The Spirit of Stone (St Lynn's Press, 2017) . Here is an April, 2019 review of Gardentopia from Marianne Willburn in her Small Town Gardener site (link is below) - "Maybe all you'd like to do this year is add some professional touches to your garden. Gardentopia by garden designer Jan Johnsen can help you do that. It's elegant, beautifully laid out and easy to read - quite simply one of the best design books for gardeners who aren't designers.Johnsen provides a huge array of design tips and doesn't make them unnecessarily complicated - encouraging the reader and sparking their creativity.It's the type of book you can pick up for 20 minutes or 2 hours and come back to again and again. I'm extremely lucky that sometimes I get a sneak preview of some of the best new books out there" - Link- https://mailchi.mp/e0903f3349a3/happy-first-day-of-spring? e=ae575dbf83Jan is co-principal of Johnsen Landscapes & Pools, www.johnsenlandscapes.com. She was an adjunct professor at Columbia University and teaches at NY Botanical Garden. In 2014 the Association for Professional Landscape Designers (APLD) awarded her firm a Merit Award in residential landscape design. Her Facebook pages are 'Heaven is a Garden' and 'Serenity in the Garden blog'. She lives in Westchester County, NY.For a schedule of upcoming lectures and workshops, please visit http://www.serenityinthegarden.blogspot.com. She is available to speak to groups: jan@johnsenlandscapes.com.Jennifer Jewell of the NSPR program,'Cultivating Place', said in a September 2016 review:"Even on a Monday - Heaven IS a garden.... Enjoyed so many things about @jan.johnsen 's book on garden design concepts entitled Heaven is a Garden(@stlynnspress) , but perhaps my favorite was the way she covers the idea that all gardens have a "power spot". This caught me and rang so true to every garden with which I've had a relationship: that one place where the energy causes pause, where the light gathers or simply where you are drawn or re-freshed by being there for no reason you can put your finger on. In my own little new suburban garden I'm considering the way we shape space - find and cultivate this moment of energetic exchange or pause. Thank you Jan Johnsen for the thought provoking pages! "The 2016 summer issue of Garden Design magazine featured Jan's design tips. In their website they also shar
