PEREN N I AL FOCUS
BOBBIE SCHWARTZ, FAPLD Bobbie’s Green Thumb
THE HOLIDAY BOOKSHELF 2018 EDITION
THE SPIRIT OF STONE: 101 PRACTICAL & CREATIVE STONESCAPING IDEAS FOR YOUR GARDEN
Jan Johnsen St. Lynn’s Press, 2017 $21.95.
Stone is beautiful, useful, and artful. So writes the author, Jan Johnsen, who then proceeds to illustrate this premise with outstanding photographs. There are so many ways to use stone in our landscapes and Jan offers inspiration as well as technical advice for installations of different types. Reading the chapter on standing stones conceptualized an idea for using upright conifers as a counterbalance to a very large flat stone in a client’s garden.
10 | Official Publication of The Ohio Landscape Association
I have traveled widely but never have seen such a diversity of styles of rock gardens as are showcased in this book. Sustainability is today’s design buzz word. Jan offers advice on using stone and gravel in the Japanese method for creating dry streams and establishing drainage. A discussion of sustainability also includes a section on the use of gravel in walks and driveways and examines the various types of gravel. Her advice on pea gravel would have saved me some design headaches when I was a less experienced designer. I loved her discourse on using different patterns and types of stone to modify the tempi of paths since they should be so much more than a way from Point A to Point B. Again, a plethora of illustrative examples. Many paths start or end with steps and Jan’s descriptions of stone steps as adding magic to a landscape and stone walls as being a visual dance of timelessness appealed to my artistic side. We, whether homeowners or landscape designers, need to add artistry to our surroundings. If I had known about this book when I was writing mine, I would have included it as a resource.