'CREATING GARDENS OF SERENITY' Class - NY Botanical Garden

(terrace by Johnsen Landscapes & Pools)

Glorious gardens of color, light, shape and fragrance help our hearts to sing. They can be like a little piece of heaven in our backyard. Toward that end, I have devoted my professional life to transforming nondescript settings into enchanting, romantic landscapes. 

My aim for the past 40 years has been to create beautiful outdoor spaces that induce sweet reverie through inspired design. Now I am anxious to share my knowledge with others and show how to create gardens of serenity and delight just as I have done for my clients throughout the years.

On Wednesday June 20 I will give a 5 hour class on 'Secrets of Creating Gardens of Serenity' (click here) at the NY Botanical Garden in the Bronx. 

I will share ideas on the power of shape, how the four cardinal directions affect us, how to use certain colors to elevate mood in a garden, how to locate a 'power spot' on a property, how to design an outdoor sitting space so that it enhances communication and well being.

Did you know that the octagon is a powerful shape? Perhaps this is why Thomas Jefferson designed his home at Poplar Forestas an 8 sided octagon...

Did you realize that  Maples affect us differently than oaks? How? We will discuss this also.... 

So please join us!

It will be eye opening and a lot of fun....click on this NYBG website and enroll with Continuing Education.

Labyrinths - Idea for Your Circular Garden

Circles intrigue us and the most compelling form of circular garden is a labyrinth. The term "labyrinth" conjures up something convoluted or maze-like but these circular walkways are relatively easy to navigate and are thought to hold great spiritual potential.

These outdoor features have been in existence for over 3,500 years and were used as solar and lunar calendars, meditative walkways and symbolic religious elements.   The labyrinth tradition has been revived in recent years and labyrinths can be seen nearly everywhere. Their presence offers us the chance to rediscover this meditative walking tradition. You can find them in open fields, parks, college campuses, and botanical gardens.

When you come upon a labyrinth, you cannot help but walk along the looping stone or gravel path. A labyrinth contains a single pathway leading round and round to a center point. Once you reach it, you simply reverse direction to go back to the beginning. This spiraling walk requires many changes of direction and creates a heightened sense of awareness to all who walk it.

 In the book, “A Celebration of Mazes,” the authors, Randall Coate, Adrian Fisher and Graham Burgess, advocate making a maze or labyrinth, writing,

“ ...You will have given our world of harsh reality and mindless speed a timeless oasis, a leisurely paradise, the substance of a dream.” (1986)  

It is indeed a lovely inclusion to any serenity garden no matter how big or small.

Rev. Dr. Lauren Artress, founder of Veriditas, the World-Wide Labyrinth Project, attributes the popularity of labyrinths, in part, to the circle shape which she calls an “an inclusive image…. an archetype for wholeness…”

Cheyenne Botanic Garden labyrinth by Archinia

It is relatively easy to build a labyrinth in your garden by using the technique that ‘Camino de Paz Labyrinths’ uses. Their ‘Labyrinth for Contemplation’ located near the World Trade Center site in New York City is situated within a grove of 11 cedar trees and serves as a memorial to the victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks. 

It consists of granite ‘Belgian Blocks’ inlaid in the lawn which winds around in seven circular rings ending in a point in the center. This contemplative memorial epitomizes how an ancient circular feature can transform a busy urban site into a place of pilgrimage.

Yin / Yang in the Garden - A Landscape Design Tip

The High Point / Shady Corner Balance – Serenity Assured

A truly harmonious outdoor space is a blend of both open space and shady shelter. The counterbalance of these two opposites can be seen as the ‘yin’ and ‘yang’ of the landscape. 

Johnsen Landscapes & Pools - www.johnsenlandscapes.com

A high point or open level lawn is bright and forceful, ‘yang’. A sheltered shady spot is muted and soft or ‘yin’. Seeing the world through the complementary lens of yin and yang is an eye opening exercise. Gardens containing both qualities feel balanced and comfortable. Therefore shady sites near open sunny lawns are thoroughly enjoyable places to sit.

A note:  moderation is the key to a tranquil and harmonious outdoor space.  Stay away from extremes of ‘yang’ or ‘yin’. For example, if a high point is too high or too exposed, it can be feel scattered.  Likewise, if a low area is too deep or shady, it feels stagnant.  But an open lawn ringed by trees is a delightful balance of yin - shade and yang - openness.

You can create this juxtaposition in any size space. Below is a photo from Sevilla, Spain. The Moorish garden designers were masters of this counterbalance - open and closed, pooling and channelling, sunlight and shade.

Mud-Luscious - A Child's Joy in Spring - e e cummings

photo from this blog (click here)

It is a rainy spring where I live. Rain and more rain. Days of rain with intermittent breaks of sun.

So when life gives you raindrops....

You make...

Mud Pies.

Learn to love the mud and you will be a happier person, I assure you....

My stepmother once chided me for playing in the dirt and mud, saying this wasn't proper for a young lady (I was 11)...

She didn't understand that this was ( and is) my greatest joy. 

Perhaps I should have showed her one of my favorite poems. It is called 'In Just' by e e cummings. 

 

Annual Mud Day Celebration in Westland, Michigan

a poem in praise of spring, mud, childhood and more by e e cummings:

 

in just-


in Just-
spring       when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles     far      and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful

Richard Shindell

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far    and    wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and


it's
spring
       and
            the
                
                  goat-footed
balloonMan        whistles
far
and
wee.

from Imagine Childhood

Rainy Day Idea : make a mud house with fern roofing......

Ecopsychology, Solastalgia, Biophilia and Serenity Gardens

Photo by Corbyrobert - Garden of the Gods

Big words for simple ideas: ecopsychology, solastalgia, biophilia....

Recently, “solastalgia” has appeared in various places like in an instrumental track called “Solastalgia,” released by the British duo Zero 7 and  it was the title of a 2008 album by Slovenian recording artist, Jukeen.

In 2010 The New York Times published a great article on this term by Daniel B. Smith (he holds the Critchlow Chair in English at the College of New Rochelle).  I took a lot of info from that article for this blog post.

BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

 

Solastalgia is "A pain or discomfort caused by the present state of one’s home environment".

It is an emotional suffering felt by different people in different locations as the ongoing degradation of the environment continues apace.

 

It is a global condition affecting indigenous people and urban / industrial denizens alike. Solastalgia is what we feel when we become disconnected from our natural environment.....

“Solastalgia” has been used to describe the experiences of Inuit communities coping with the effects of rising temperatures

Bangladeshi subsistence farmers faced with changes in rainfall patterns

 Click here for source of this photo

 and refugees returning to New Orleans after Katrina.

This concept is not new.  Ecopsychology -  “the relationship between environmental issues and mental health and well-being” - addresses this in detail.. Ecopsychology is taught at Oberlin College, Lewis & Clark College and the University of Wisconsin, among other institutions.

Why is this important to serenity garden lovers and designers?

Because the scientists are following our lead!

The vital link between well being and nature that is our calling is now being investigated by Ecopsychologists. They use words like 'solastalgia' and 'solasphilia' give talks and write scholarly articles on how nature makes us feel good.   

They say that their field’s roots are in traditions like Buddhism, Romanticism and Transcendentalism.

And these too are the philosophical roots of Serenity Gardening...Thoreau, Lao Tzu, et al.....

A great book.....

And don't forget the wide concept of 'biophilia', a hypothesis of the great biologist E. O. Wilson, who said in 1984 that human beings have an “innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes.” AMEN to that!

Dr. Edward O. Wilson

Over the past 25 years Wilson's ideas on 'biophilia' have inspired many scientific articles, books, conferences and the new E. O.Wilson Biophilia Center in northwest Florida.

The E.O. Wilson Center's Exhibit Hall

Yes, we gardeners focus on life and revel in its exquisite forms in the green world....

Serenity gardens sing praises to Mother Nature's effect on our wellbeing in a quiet way.  No scholarly words here...just the hum of the bees at work.
 
Ecopsychology is alive and well in my back yard when I am puttering there.
 
 

photo at Flikr by one2c900d

 
 
 

Breath in that Forest Air! The healing practice of 'FOREST BATHING'

Every morning, early, I walk for an hour in a forest near my house.

Right now, my 2 walking partners and I leave our homes when it is dark and cold and we return when it is light. We walk on paved streets to reach this forest trail, take rapid strides, breath in the cold air and marvel at the sunrise through the trees. Truly wonderful.

Now I find out that our little morning reverie has a name: ' forest bathing' or, in the original Japanese, 'Shinrin-yoku.  This relatively new therapy, the Japanese tell us, literally instills peace, calms us and promotes immunity to disease! Like a walking healing meditation, "forest bathing" coordinates breath and movement in the presence of the scent of forest trees to uplift us.

Ever since a Japanese government agency coined the term, 'forest bathing'  in 1982, 'shinrin-yoku' has slowly made its way into the vernacular in Japan  It has a great many Japanese fans who now can visit forty two 'forest therapy' parks for stress relief. Their goal is to set up 100 within the next decade.

The phrase 'shinrin-yoku' really means “taking in the forest atmosphere" and recently, Japanese scientists quantified the effects of this atmosphere through several studies.

They credit 'phytoncides', the airborne chemicals (odor) emitted by plants that protect them from disease and insects, as the elements that provide a positive, protective chemical reaction within us humans.

One Japanese study followed 280 healthy residents. Some were instructed to walk through a forest or wooded area for a few hours while others were asked to walk through an urban setting.

On the second day, they traded places. Those who spent time in the woods experienced lower levels of cortisol (which induces stress), a lower pulse rate and lower blood pressure while raising levels of white blood cells.

Also in 2007, Japanese men who took two-hour walks in a forest over two days had a 50-percent increase in the levels of natural killer (NK) cells, white blood cells that kill tumors and viruses.

And another study found an increase in white blood cells that lasted a week in women exposed to phytoncides in forest air.

What this tells us is that inhaling scent from the trees, or more specifically,  the volatile oils from trees, makes us healthier. And since we have spent most of our evolutionary history in natural environments - walking in the woods is like a physiological homecoming.

How this works is simple:  These aromatic chemicals go straight up our nose to the limbic portion of our brain which releases health inducing hormones and more to reduce our stress and boost our immune system instanteously!  

(There is a reason the Magi brought frankincense and myrrh....)

Of course breathing in and out also plays a part. Breathing meditation calms the mind and develops inner peace. When you do this in a forest, park or botanical garden and inhale those healthy tree scents you double the benefit.

And if you envision yourself connected to the earth and to others in the same way that a forest is connected by its web of roots then the beneficial health effect is magnified.

In summary, a healthy mind and a healthy body are both rejuvenated in healthy forests.

Maybe that is why I wrote a book on trees:

Our Favorite Archetypal Landscape - Denis Dutton, TED

 Denis Dutton  is a philosopher... He is the head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Dutton is from Los Angeles, California and was educated at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He taught at several US universities before emigrating to New Zealand (like my dear friend, Louisa, did...)

 In his book The Art Instinct, Dutton suggests that humans are hard-wired to seek beauty.  He gave a talk at TED on THE DARWINIAN THEORY OF BEAUTY and referred to the Atavistic Archetypes of Beauty....Here is an excerpt from his talk where Dutton describes the archetypal landscape that we all seem to prefer over any other:

“Consider briefly... the magnetic pull of beautiful landscapes.

People in very different cultures all over the world tend to like a particular kind of landscape, a landscape that just happens to be similar to the Pleistocene savannas where we evolved.

Savanna, Uganda - Ruwenzori Mountains

This landscape shows up today on calendars, on postcards, in the design of golf courses and public parks and in gold-framed pictures that hang in living rooms from New York to New Zealand.

It's a kind of Hudson River school landscape (I love this - I live in the Hudson River Valley)  featuring open spaces of low grasses interspersed with copses of trees.

Oak Savanna

The trees, by the way, are often preferred if they fork near the ground, that is to say, if they're trees you could scramble up if you were in a tight fix.

The landscape shows the presence of water directly in view, or evidence of water in a bluish distance, indications of animal or bird life as well as diverse greenery

forest near Killarney, Ireland

and finally -- get this -- a path or a road, perhaps a riverbank or a shoreline, that extends into the distance, almost inviting you to follow it.

Kenyan Highlands - North of Nanyuki

This landscape type is regarded as beautiful, even by people in countries that don't have it.

San Francisco Park

The ideal savanna landscape is one of the clearest examples where human beings everywhere find beauty in similar visual experience.”

Rift Valley, Kenya near Kaptagat

Here is a wonderful animated version of his talk. Its a little long...but a lot of fun with the animated graphics:

The Therapeutic Benefits of Gardens.

photo - Jan Johnsen, Croton Point Park

Robert Ulrich was in the hospital with a badly broken leg.

Forced to lie flat on his back, Ulrich, an environmental psychologist, stared for hours at a too bright ceiling light surrounded by acoustic ceiling tile.

 “I remember...how much I wished I had an attractive image on the ceiling,” Ulrich recalls.

White Birches - Jan Johnsen, Boscobel

Now the director of the Center for Health Systems & Design at Texas A&M University, Ulrich produced groundbreaking research that found that viewing natural scenes in a hospital aids stress recovery by evoking positive feelings, reducing negative emotions and blocking or reducing stressful thoughts.

When test subjects viewed gardens as opposed to urban scenes, they exhibited lower alpha rates which are associated with being wakefully relaxed.

Garden by Jan Johnsen

Further research by Ulrich indicated that surgical patients who had views of nature had shorter post-operative stays, fewer negative comments from nurses, took less pain medication and experienced fewer minor post-operative complications than those with a view of a brick wall!

Healing begins in a garden.  All hospitals should have healing landscapes for patients to visit.

Landscape by Johnsen Landscapes & Pools

But  what does a healing landscape entail specifically?

In the United Kingdom, Maggie Keswick, a well known English garden writer, was dying of breast cancer and her wish was for her partner, noted landscape designer, Charles Jencks, to set up a series of cancer centers which provided a sanctuary away from clinical hospital environments.  Thereafter, a number of MAGGIE gardens were established in Scotland, Keswick’s country of birth.

A recent Maggie garden was developed by English designer, Dan Pearson, at Charing Cross Hospital, London. It was widely heralded but the photos show a rather uninspiring outdoor space...so what does a healing garden need to be, specifically? Bridget Rosewell wrote about the Pearson garden in the great website, Thinkin Gardens:

"Looking round rather wild eyed and frankly astonished, I reflected on what was wrong here.  I concluded that there were three things lacking.  They are green, seating and a place to cry. 

Greenery carries huge symbolism of hope and in a winter garden gives structure and density.  It is no accident that so many successful gardens have yew hedges [this is England]. 

 Seats give the opportunity to meditate, to doze and to absorb the reality of growth and renewal. 

A place to cry is denied by the busyness of hospitals and the necessity of treatment.  But recovery requires it and it in turn requires privacy and hidden corners."

I must admit I never thought about the 'place to cry' and hidden corners but you know it makes sense....

A great post about healing gardens is from University of Minnesota (click here)