From 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 29 garden designer Jan Johnsen will be giving a free talk at the Croton Free Library based on her excellent new book, “Heaven is a Garden: Designing Serene Spaces for Inspiration and Reflection” (St. Lynn’s Press, April 2014).
The book is a delight — smart and well written, not too long, and full of practical I-didn’t-know-that tips for home gardeners. It’s beautifully illustrated, too, with her own photos of landscapes she has designed and installed, most of which are in Westchester. If you’ve got a gardener on your gift list, keep this book in mind.
A gravel path through a Chappaqua garden designed by Jan Johnsen. Photos by Johnsen.
If you can’t make it Tuesday, Johnsen is also speaking and signing books at noon on Saturday, May 3 at the Hudson Valley Garden Fair in Montgomery Place in Dutchess County. Admission, plus lecture is $24 in advance, $30 day of event.
A bench catches the early morning light in a Chappaqua garden designed by Johnsen. The white blooms behind the bench are foamflower (Tiarella ‘Neon Lights’).
Johnson, who has more than 40 years of experience as a landscape designer, says that she has been working on the book for six years, getting up every day at 5 a.m. to write before going to work. “It was a true labor of love,” she says. “I wrote it and took the photos and then found a publisher — not easy these days.”
“The design ideas I present are not standard-issue design rules, so I worked hard to make the text easy to grasp,” she adds.
Jan Johnsen, photo by Laura McKillop
With her husband, Rafael Algarin, she is the proprietor of Mount Kisco-based Johnsen Landscapes and Pools, which oversees about 20 projects a year. They live in Croton-on-Hudson.
They founded the firm in 1986 in Greenwich, and then moved it to Westchester a few years later to be more centrally located and because that was where most of their work was. They have lots of well-known clients, including the Chappaqua garden they designed for Hillary and Bill Clinton.
“We started out as design and build, but now we provide maintenance services to projects we have installed and offer project management of large landscape and pool projects as well,” she says. “Rafael runs the firm and oversees the crews.”
The Croton Free Library is at 171 Cleveland Drive; 914-271-6612. Montgomery Place is at 26 Gardner Way in Redhook, N.Y.; 845-758-5461, www.hvgardenfair.com/lectures.
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