NYBG instructor Jan Johnsen designs gardens on three principles: simplicity, sanctuary, and delight.
These three ideas, she said, help us return to a kinship with the natural world, so we can quiet our thoughts and enjoy the present moment in our busy lives.
Johnsen, who has taught Landscape Design at NYBG off and on for almost 20 years, recently released a book, Heaven is a Garden: Designing Serene Outdoor Spaces for Inspiration and Reflection, in which she offers her unique perspective on designing with reflection in mind She hopes to use her book as a tool to open people’s eyes to a deeper understanding of power and place in nature and to appreciate all aspects of the world around us, even rocks, which she believes “have resonance.”
Leda Meredith is the Gardening Coordinator for Adult Education
After months of an especially relentless winter, spring is officially here! It’s not only the time when sunshine and blossoms beckon, but also when we need to get busy in the garden. The gardening you do now will determine the success of your landscape through summer and even into fall. Tasks to tackle can include anything from preparing your soil for the coming year to making the leap toward designing a pollinator-friendly garden. For those of you more concerned with indoor plants, it might be time to think about a spring repotting!
Whatever your focus, NYBG’s Adult Education courses offer you plenty of opportunities to become a better gardener. They might even give you the confidence to try something entirely new in your home garden. Here are my picks for the classes that will give you the skills you need for your best gardening year ever:
This Thursday, March 20, is the exciting culmination of our 14th Annual Winter Lecture Series. Our final speaker will be Thomas Rainer, an accomplished landscape architect who teaches planting design for the George Washington University Landscape Design program. He has worked on projects such as the U.S. Capitol grounds, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and The New York Botanical Garden, but he is happiest puttering in his small garden at home in Washington, D.C.
It’s true, Thomas Rainer isn’t crossing any oceans to visit the Garden as our previous two speakers did, but professional and amateur gardeners will relate to Rainer’s personal journey. On Grounded Design, his award–winning blog, Rainer charts his process of discovery towards ever-better planting designs and methods. Click through to see his impressive designs.
Finally, it’s just about March, and we can stop dreaming about gardening and actually get going! Whether you’re a novice to the gardening game or a dyed-in-the-wool green thumb, pre-season education and preparation can go a long way. That’s where the NYBG’s Spring Adult Education classes come into play.
Here are my top picks for classes that will help make 2014 your best gardening season ever. I’ll be back next month with April picks, so be sure to keep an eye on Plant Talk for upcoming courses and workshops that you won’t want to miss!
Tom Lawson was a massage therapist until he bought a piece of property in the Hamptons.
The land was overgrown and neglected. Tom spent years lovingly redeveloping the landscaping. Then, over time, more and more people said to him, “You need to go do this professionally.”
So he tried. As projects fell into his lap, he realized he needed a language to communicate his ideas. Words weren’t enough.
“Most people don’t have the ability to visualize something that isn’t there,” Tom said.
He needed to learn how to sketch, how to draft. Tom found his way to The New York Botanical Garden Adult Education Program, where he earned Certificates in Horticulture (’12) and Landscape Design (’13), and continues to study.
It is hard to believe a month has already passed, but tomorrow is the second lecture in our 14th Annual Winter Lecture Series. The Garden is lucky to welcome Kim Wilkie, a London-based landscape architect and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, to the Ross Lecture Hall on Thursday. His lecture, entitled Sculpting the Land, will offer a photographic tour of his forward-thinking and utterly unique designs, incorporating his signature landforms and architectural innovations.
In his own words, Kim Wilkie is a landscape architect who loves mud. The technique of making sculpted hardscapes out of clay and chalk have an ancient history in the United Kingdom, and Wilkie adapts these traditions to breathe new life into antique gardens.
It’s not only the born-and-raised green thumbs who find their way into professional horticulture. Among some of our Horticulture Certificate program’s accomplished alumni you’ll find horticulturists and landscape designers who started their careers in very different fields, and Amy Henderson, who spent much of her working life designing without a trowel at her side, is just such a person. We recently caught up with Amy to get her take on entering a Horticulture Certificate program, working in garden design, and more.
What drew you to the NYBG Horticulture Certificate Program?
Around 2009 I started visiting the Garden frequently and treated myself to a few Gardening classes. I was looking for a change from my decades of work in graphic design, and it dawned on me that I could use my design skills with a new, living medium—plants—and that maybe the Horticulture certificate could lay the foundation of a path to a new career. I settled on the Garden Design Horticulture track because to me, the plants are what it’s all about.
Vincent Simeone is a well-respected horticulturist who teaches a number of plant-related courses in the Garden’s Horticulture Certificate program. He just released a new book, Grow More With Less: Sustainable Garden Methods (Cool Springs Press, December 2013), that offers the home gardener detailed and practical ways to create a sustainable home landscape with less work, less water, less money, and better results. Vincent graciously offered to share with us some tips from this valuable resource.
Proper plant selection is very important. What will your book cover and is there one general tip you can share?
There is an entire chapter in the book dedicated to properly selecting the right plant for the right place and it encourages gardeners to think outside the box. This chapter offers some popular, tried and true favorites such as flowering dogwood and winterberry, along with some lesser-known species plants and new cultivars that extend seasonal interest and are low maintenance once established. The resurgence of native grasses such as Little Blue Stem and Switch Grass have raised the bar in the horticultural industry giving us many new possibilities that we didn’t necessarily have before. The key is to do your homework and purchase plants from a reputable plant source.
So right about now you’re probably in the throes of gift-giving season, hunting down the perfect gift for that special someone, or even something to wrap up for yourself. And I know, Black Friday has already passed (I think that’s a collective sigh of relief I hear). But don’t worry—the NYBG is home to a wide variety of thoughtful gift ideas that’ll help you win genuine smiles from family and friends. And part of the proceeds will support the Garden as well!
Whether it’s a unique domed terrarium from Shop in the Garden, a Membership that offers year-round enjoyment, an exciting Adult Education course in one of a multitude of interesting subjects, or a dedicated bench on our historic landscape, there’s a gift that will both bring joy to the recipient and help carry out far-reaching education, research, and conservation efforts in our New York community and around the globe—a mission we have been committed to for more than 120 years.
Our shop is the first stop for many gift-hunting visitors, and with good reason. It offers a bevy of gifts in rich botanical textures and seasonal themes, as well as books, music, home decor, edibles, and plants for the window sill or home garden. Looking to set someone up with all the necessary gardening kit? We’ve got you covered there, too, with plenty of tools to suit the trade.
Most people think of gardening as a solitary activity, but Horticultural Therapy is a unique profession because it turns plant care into an opportunity for human interaction. It was that human element that brought plantsman Rob Bennaton back to The New York Botanical Garden to pursue a Certificate in Horticultural Therapy. With a previous NYBG Horticulture Certificate and 18 years’ worth of experience in community development and habitat restoration under his belt, Rob told us why he returned to study the therapeutic effects of plant care on people.
“Working with plants through a nurturing process has tremendous healing potential because people are motivated by success in caring for living organisms. That process helps us understand our place in the world, and our ability to help make it a better place, and that’s what brought me to Horticultural Therapy.”
As a student, Rob is learning the therapeutic skills and horticultural techniques needed to serve a broad population of people in need. “In order for the activities to be therapeutic, they must be well planned, address specific treatment needs, offer steps towards personal growth, and be considerate of the client population’s desire for independence.”
NYBG instructor Jan Johnsen designs gardens on three principles: simplicity, sanctuary, and delight.
