In this month’s installment of Creatives We Love, we catch up with Jan Johnsen, author, Landscape Designer, and one of our favorite vendors.
You frequently reference your love of art alongside your love of landscape. Which came first?
My love of art came first - which was easy because both my parents were fine artists. And I went to the High School of Music & Art in NYC which helped to cultivate my artist’s eye. Art in the landscape - the sweep of lines, forms and color - is overlooked but that is changing.
Twenty years ago, how did you envision your career evolving and how does that compare to where you are today?
Let’s push that back a few decades- I loved plants but had no idea there was a profession called landscape architecture (I grew up in apartments in Brooklyn and Manhattan). I thought I would be an architect - it was only when I went to work at an architecture office in Japan that I saw their amazing gardens. I subsequently went to work at a landscape architecture office in Japan and then went on and studied landscape architecture in Hawaii and never looked back.
What’s one seemingly obvious thing that you have to explain to every single client?
NO. 1 - that landscape and site work is much more expensive than they realize. NO.2 - I explain that the work I do will transform their property. Either it will make it look larger or more inviting or both. It is easier to visualize indoor makeovers but outdoor transformations are harder to imagine.
What’s the biggest roadblock in your business?
The village or town approval process is very cumbersome and slow these days. If you want a swimming pool it may take months to get approvals.
How busy is a landscape designer in the 2020 World Pandemic ALSO in the hottest real estate market northern Westchester has ever seen?
This is the busiest year I have had - working 7 days a week at this point. People are home and looking out their window and saying - “wow - I need to make some changes in my garden and outdoor living space”. The Westchester real estate market is HOT.
Please share details about your favorite plant. We love the way you describe them.
One of my favorite shrubs is the native Oakleaf hydrangea - it has large leaves that look like oak leaves, long white panicle flowers that droop down and the greatest burgundy fall color! It tolerates part shade. It doesn’t look so great in early spring when people often buy plants so that is why think people don’t plant them as much as they should. ‘Snowflake’ is my favorite variety.
How about a crazy project story. We know you have a lot!
My craziest project story - so many. A good one is the time I suggested to a client building their house that he move the proposed house over by 15 feet to better accommodate a proposed circular drive. They had already marked it out and were digging the foundation - but they stopped and moved it over...he was so grateful.
What’s your best source of inspiration?
I am inspired by Nature. I look at the way the land and plants interact, the way water moves through a site, the shade patterns, the plant groupings that seem to work best in a natural setting. Other than that, my favorite landscape designer is the 20th-century Brazilian modernist, Roberto Burle Marx.
What’s your biggest hope for how people care for their land?
My biggest hope is that people see that our natural world is out of balance. For example, the forest trees are not regenerating because the deer have eaten all the young saplings. Our kids are doomed to a treeless world because the young oaks, maples and pines have been eaten by ravenous deer in winter. Time to get the natural world back in balance.
Jan Johnsen is the author of several books including – Gardentopia, The Spirit of Stone and Heaven is a Garden
