Joan Werner-Ziegler

Principal Garden Designer

BS in Horticulture, University of Wisconsin-Madison 1978 ~ Joan combines all of her loves, skills, and talents in her work at ZDA. Working closely with lifelong friend and fellow garden designer, Rebecca Reed, the two use their love of people and plants to create soulful gardens and outdoor spaces for their clients. Joan and Rebecca’s gardens have received the highest national honors for perennial garden design.

Designs that are driven by nature, not against it, are the key to Joan’s tremendous success as a garden designer. Heavily influenced by her husband’s father, Landscape Architect George Ziegler, Joan’s appreciation and understanding of plant communities as well as understanding the limits of the garden and site, are what make her designs successful. In short, and according to Joan, “if a plant doesn’t (like to) grow in an area, don’t plant it there.”

How Joan relates to the world and her relationships in it, is by constantly perceiving things and using them — whether putting together a garden design, a visual composition in a photograph, an emotional image in a poem, or a classical form in a sculpture or piece of pottery. She is constantly receiving input through the lenses of her experiences and feelings and this information feeds her creative process. Joan shares this vision and plant expertise as a professional speaker and published writer.

As a specialist tutoring children and adolescents with unique learning abilities, specifically dyslexia, Joan is keenly aware of the many ways in which people learn, communicate, and interpret the world around them. Connections to nature provide extensions of the classroom and therapeutic experience, and Joan’s training and skills in horticulture, garden design, and teaching allow her to marry the three. Her greatest compliment is the many clients who let her know that they “can’t wait to be outside in my garden”. Joan strives to continually connect people with nature and the outside world.

Publications

“A Feast for the Senses”. By Joan Ziegler and MaraLee Gabler. Madison Originals Magazine. 2007 Vol.10.

“Winter Magic”. By Joan Ziegler. Madison Originals Magazine. 2007 Vol.9.

“Color Throughout the Seasons”. By Joan Ziegler. Madison Originals Magazine. 2006 Vol.5.

“Color at the Door”. By Joan Ziegler. Madison Originals Magazine. 2006 Vol.7.

“Beautiful and Delicious”. By Joan Ziegler. Madison Originals Magazine. 2006 Vol.8