Stachys 'Hummelo' - my fave rave....

Japanese Varigated Iris and Stachys 'Hummelo'

I must admit I develop plant infatuations..and just as in my life, the quiet hard-to-get-to-know types fascinate me....

this time it is Stachys officinalis 'Hummelo'

Iris pallida varigata, flower carpet roses, gomphrena 'Buddy Purple'

It is a Stachys cultivar (its cousin is the famous 'Lamb's ears') and it is a low growing, clumping perennial groundcover, growing no more than 20" high. It has the most wonderful glossy dark green scalloped leaves growing in a tight rosette pattern. It looks as if someone took those scalloping shears to their edges.

Hummelo - my name for this plant -  is easily grown in average, medium, well-drained soils in full sun or part shade. It spreads by creeping stems (stolons) that root as they go along the ground. The leaves are evergreen in warm winter climates.

Courtesy Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder

They say that Hummelo is grown primarily for its vivid flowers which can provide a spectacular display, particularly when massed .  But I also love its leaves.

Hummelo is a lovely addition to a rose / rock garden as shown below.

I added the Flower Carpet Rose 'Pink Supreme' and it has become the star of the show in this lovely rock outcrop garden:

But first I added a lot of compost and soil....its all about the soil....

Outdoor Shower Ideas for Your Garden

The Bridge by Douches de jardins

The outdoor shower is a summer dream for many of us. Imagine waking up and going outside (in seclusion and privacy) and taking a shower 'pleine air'...

The image conjures up morning, brightness, serenity and refreshment...ahhhh....

You don't need much room but you will need some privacy fencing or dense plant screening.

Why not take the plunge?  I am trying to figure out where to put one in my little yard.  Here are a few ideas for you:


THE BRIDGE

From Douches de jardins

This shower envelops the body in a gush of water.. The water tap is located at the shower’s rear base and connects directly to a garden hose or to a fixed installation.   A hot water regulator allows mixing hot and cold water at the desired temperature.   Looks like a lot of fun.

UNDER THE TREE

Under the Tree by Conmoto

An arching spray of water from a tree-like source.  The tree's other branches are ideal for hanging towels and clothes. Designed by Michael Sieger, the Under the Tree garden shower is kept in place by a single ground spike and consists of two pieces for convenient storage and mobility.  

 

THE PILOTIS IN A PINE STAND

The Pilotis in Pine by Douches de jardins

A beautiful old fashioned style shower.....

This shower is made of northern pine half logs and works like a conventional shower. It has a large, 1/4 turn, chromed brass faucet. A hand-held shower head can be supplied as an option and can installed on a terrace or on a lawn. The water tap at the shower’s rear base connects directly to a garden hose.

SPRING HOUSE ECONOMY SHOWER

This is what I will get - an economical outdoor shower unit that comes with with or without a foot shower (to wash your feet). brass faucet body with lucite handles. Does the job and you can dress up the surroundings.

There are so many others out there.....Of course, being a landscape designer, I say that you should not forget the setting in which you place this marvelous addition.  Set it within a garden of Ornmental Grasses, Rose of Sharon, boxwood, coreopsis.....

shower garden by Jan Johnsen - www.johnsenlandscapes.com

We are the children of our landscape; it dictates behavior and even thought in the measure to which we are responsive to it.

Lawrence Durrell

If this is true, and I think it is, then we are children of strip malls, power lines and asphalt paving.

The yellow double lines confine our minds as we travel the landscape of modern life in a numbing cavalcade. No footsteps do we hear. No grassy breezy plants do we admire. Our thoughts are responsive to squat office parks and bright colored signs.

Dali

Children of the landscape must change the view and remember that we choose to live among the functional detritus of the everyday. We tell ourselves we love high tech but inwardly we cry for the soft vine, pregnant with fragrance.

It follows then that if you create a garden -and dwell in it - it will dictate your behavior. And all for the better. You can't be in a bad mood when surrounded by wondrous sounds and effervescent greens

Garden by Jan Johnsen

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Have You Seen Houzz?

Johnsen Landscapes & Pools Project

Have you seen Houzz?

It is a must for all designers, students, home and garden lovers...

I have just started uploading photos and I am suggesting all professionals do the same. I have a lot more to share...

You will love all the various designer images here.

Click here to see my page on Houzz.

Have a Good Time!

Fine Gardening Magazine Website and my Blue Gate, Grass Steps

Welcome Fine Gardening Readers! 

I say that because yesterday I got so many new visitors here due to my garden photo on the fabulous Fine Gardening Magazine website. For those who don't know it, check it out - it is full of all manner of things horticultural - very inspiring and informative.

Yesterday they featured a shot of a lovely blue gate entrance in one of my gardens: click right here for the link.  

 

And today they featured my signature Grass Steps and garden. Click here for that link.

 

The Great Photo of the Day site is run by Michelle Gervais, who has an extensive hands-on knowledge of plants, gardens, nurseries, etc. She even worked in my neck of the woods for a time. You can subscribe to her photo of the day. Click here for that.

A Four Season Rain Garden - a short video

Rain gardens are making a splash these days ( sorry - I couldn't help it)...

And with good reason! The low, damp, dank areas that are vital to good drainage, wildlife, and air quality don't have to be swampy lowlands....they can be made into RAIN GARDENS.

These special gardens can be beautiful as well as functional and require a minimum of care, once established. 

The garden I show you here in this video was essentially a 'no-mans-land' before we enhanced it. The wetland plants soak up the water. The subsurface pipe I installed ( to prevent massive flooding) works to keep the flooding in check. 

Sensitive Fern and Blue Bunny Sedge in the Rain garden

The garden I show you here has just been planted - in a few years it will be glorious!

Design with Sound in a Garden... (Part One)

close up of glass wind chimes

Sound is an overlooked element in landscape design.  
When you think of sounds in a garden you most likely conjure up images of birds singing, leaves rustling or bees buzzing but there are many more subtle auditory effects you can use - and I am not just talking about wind chimes.  For some ideas we can look to the ancient Japanese gardens where sound was a key consideration in the overall plan.

Stone Path - Japanese Garden at Kykuit

This is described beautifully in a text on the Japanese Garden at Rockefeller's Kykuit garden in Pocantico, NY written by Cynthia Bronson Altman:

"... The hollow tones of the shishi-odoshi (lit. 'deer-scare') – a rhythmic knock of bamboo on rock – the splash of the waterfall into a deep pool, the rustle of breezes through the bamboo, mute the rush of the world today, creating a space for contemplation and meditation, for a mindful walk..., transporting one to another world, another reality."

Wow. I couldn't have said it better.

The Japanese gardeners used sound to heighten the sense of 'near' and 'far' in a garden.

They would muffle the sound of a cascade by strategically placing plants or rocks near the water.  The obstacles bounced the sound back and the muffled sound created the impression that the waterfall was in the distance when it was really around the corner along the garden path!

in Hyartt Hotel in Kauai

This is why I always plant around a waterfall with great care, placing the plants where they might muffle the sound...I normally locate evergreens on one side of a waterfall to act as a visual backdrop and as a sound buffer.  These plants may include hemlock, rhododendron, Manhattan euonymus, Dwarf threadleaf cypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera filifera), weeping norway spruce, boxwood and leatherleaf Viburnum.  I also use smaller plants in the front or front side of a cascade such as Persicaria affinis 'Donald Lowndes' (Knotweed or Fleeceflower), dwarf Chinese Astilbe (Astilbe chinensis pumila), Japanese Painted Fern (Athyrium niponicum ‘Pictum’), Maidenhair fern, Iris, sedum and various varieties of cotoneaster.

A Cascade planted up - Jan Johnsen

Similarly, they would play with the sound of footsteps.  In old Japan, people often wore wooden sandals called 'geta' and the 'clip clop' sound of shoes was a part of everyday life.  Thus, garden paths paved with stone intensified the tapping of footfall sounds while paths of tamped earth dampened the sound considerably.  And, of course,  gravel paths provided a crunching sound.  Alas, today, with soft-soled shoes being the norm, the sounds of a path are not as obvious but they are still audible.

Crunchy Gravel Walk with Step Stones - a Collaborative Design - Jan and Marc

There are a lot more sound ideas that I will share in another blog post....but I hope the sounds of the season will now grab your attention!

Look here for some fun step stones....Nichols Bros. Stepstones

A Circular Vegetable Garden - An Edible Landscape

This is not my vegie garden - it belongs to Martha Stewart, literally down the road from my office.

A day ago I attended a cocktail party at the New York Botanical Garden celebrating Martha Stewart and her Edible Garden there. As usual, it was a gracious event, much as all Martha's endeavors are.

Martha Stewart's Herb Garden at NYBG  in spring

Martha Stewart's Herb Garden at NYBG in summer - cynara (CARDOON) in the center

I walked through her Culinary Herb Garden, a display of the finest culinary herbs personally selected by Martha. The three tuteurs  (I call them metal obelisks but what do I know?) in the garden were the lovely feature of the herb beds.....

The tuteur in Martha's Herb Garden

This herb garden is referred to as an edible garden. I call it an herb garden..this leads me to ask - How is an edible garden different from an herb or vegetable garden?  The contents? The layout? The location? The intent?

Garden to the left is also Martha's...

Whatever the answer to that question I would like to share my circular 'edible garden' with you ...or what I call a great design for a vegie garden....

It derives from my opinion that edible plants prefer to grow in circle (biodynamic principles appeal to me). It also makes it more manageable and easy to maintain - and I am a veteran of the straight row vegie gardens - I know what I am talking about here. Circles win every time.

Charles Hubbard Garden in Nova Scotia

So won't you follow me into a circular edible garden? I made this video yesterday - please ignore the overhead airplane noise..

Colocasia  ( an edible aroid) in my edible garden

Grass Steps - My Signature Dish, Part One

Garden writing is a delectable occupation. It allows me to offer up choice morsels of horticultural trivia, succulent design tips and full flavored philosophical musings about all and sundry. Today I am presenting the first installment of my signature dish  --- grass steps.

one of my projects - can you see the steps? no? great!

I refer to grass steps - or grass treads, which is the more correct term - as my signature simply because I have been incorporating them in my landscapes since the early 1980s.  I first saw grass steps in the mid 1970's in one of my favorite landscape venues, Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C.

this great photo from Dumbarton  is from The Photo Garden Bee website

Beatrix Farrand, the preeminent American landscape gardener (as she called herself) of the early twentieth century, installed three grass treads in a sloping lawn in Dumbarton Oaks. When I first saw them I was struck at how they disappeared when viewing them from above...I loved this visual illusion! I also admired the way they suited the general sloping conditions of the site.

Beatrix Farrand, my fave

This approach arose, I assume, from what Farrand's mentor, Charles Sprague Sargent, taught her. The following is from the informative website, 'Beatrix Farrand, Landscape Gardener'...

"Sargent taught Beatrix the basic concepts of landscape design, as well as how to stake out and survey a piece of land. Sargent imparted to Beatrix the idea that "plan" should fit the ground. One should never attempt to change the ground for the plan. (Balmori 2, p. 17) Farrand heeded this advice in her design plan for Dumbarton Oaks (Dumbarton Oaks, Site Plans, no. 3). "

"Never attempt to change the ground for the plan"...well, in a perfect world that would be true. But I find I must alter a site to make it usable...However, grass steps do comport themselves and fit within a slope so seamlessly that it appears that all I had to do was make a cut in the earth and insert them, surgically..and that is why I love them so much! no one would ever guess how much work I went through to make these steps look so natural.

In 1992 Landscape Architecture magazine featured an article about me and a photo of my grass steps cutting across a lawn in Greenwich, CT.  (They wanted to put it on the cover of the magazine but called and explained to me on the phone that they didn't know who I was so...) I received so many phone calls from designers who had seen this photo, asking me the specifics of how I built them. From that day forward , grass steps have multiplied and are now everywhere! I like to think I had a hand in this rediscovery of Beatrix Farrand's fabulous idea but I will never know.

a project of mine in Greenwich, Ct.

This is the photo from the 1992 issue of Landscape Architecture magazine......'Married with Clients' was the name of the article.

More on grass steps in another post, have to go to work!

Front Walk and Foundation Planting Video - Jan Johnsen

Here is my second very short video! Laura McKillop, my associate, is the videographer.. baby steps into the wild and wooly world of video....

My first - very short - video garden tour!

I have joined the video revolution with this very short tour of my postage stamp garden and just as I began my neighbor chose to open his long ladder....

so here is a brief tour - with sound effects to boot!

The photos below show what my garden loooked like before....

Rocks and soil for mounding and bordering along drystream

 

layout for dry stream that you see in the video

Before and After - Garden Transformations

Everytime I show 'Before and After' photos in my popular garden talks people ask me for more...

It seems we can't get enough of the Makeover; the Transformation; the Hope Springs Eternal;

 and I love it!!

I just wish I had taken more 'before' photos than I did...you see, I didn't realize that it is the 'Before' photos that are so valuable...once you change the scene you can never get that ugly situation back again.

take those ugly 'before' photos now - don't delay!

I used to think that my job is to change the world, one serene, beautiful garden at a time, but I was wrong...

it is to document the changes and then share them with you so you can be inspired to do the same or better...

It is the 'Pay it Forward' view of life...

so here you are:

and here are some more:

and here:

an inspiring dvd to watch -  'Pay it Forward':