“It doesn't matter what you do,” my grandfather told me, “as long as everything you touch changes shape, becomes different from what it was before, so that a part of you remains in it. That is the difference between a man who merely mows the lawn and a true gardener. The first will pass, and it is as if he never existed, but the gardener will live for generations.”
My personal garden came to life at a time when I had not even considered landscape design as a profession. After browsing through countless foreign garden magazines, I could not find anyone who could realize my dream.
At that time, I was fond of English gardens and began working on the project on my own. Unexpectedly, this became a passion and a field of experimentation. Many plants have passed through my garden.
Over time, I realized that the perfection of the English garden, its strict rules and manicured look, were not for me.
The turning point for me was a book on natural gardening, which discussed preserving soil fertility, mulch, the multitude of species and their combinations, and how nature always strives to cover all bare soil, leaving no empty space.
Yana Danyuk
Principal Designer
I allowed the plants the freedom to propagate and live their own lives, observing and guiding the process. As a result, the garden developed a resilient, consistently ornamental backbone—the foundation of the garden—and filler plants.
Plants that behaved aggressively were either removed or managed with a tailored approach. It turned out that vigorously spreading perennials planted, for instance, between mature and robust shrubs do not pose a threat to others. Those that self-seed aggressively but are dear to my heart, I began cutting back in a timely manner after flowering, limiting their spread. Short-lived perennials that appear in the garden in moderate numbers were given complete freedom; their unexpected appearance in a new corner is always a surprise. I call them 'nomads'. Wild perennials introduced to our garden with the soil during construction turned out to be a wonderful addition and remained to live in the garden.
Thus, my garden transformed from English to natural and free. All that was required of me was a little control.
Yana Danyuk
Principal Designer
The lawn became a small meadow of mixed grasses and wildflowers, free of herbicides and with minimal fertilizer. Fruit trees, shrubs, and the kitchen garden blended seamlessly into the garden, so that guests did not even realize it was a kitchen garden.
My garden effortlessly sells my work as a landscape designer!
When people visit my garden, they want the same for themselves.
Yana Danyuk
Principal Designer of Gardeniana. She creates designer gardens in Athens and throughout Greece.
