Japanese garden designs

The mountains, hills, lakes, streams, waterfalls and seashores of Japan are the inspirational basis of Japanese garden designs. Each garden represents, in miniature, an expanse of natural scenery; and invites the visitor to be still and contemplate the wonder of creation.

Planning a Japanese garden design:

Japanese gardens are enclosed, screened from the outside by plantings and fences or hills. Often created in comparatively small areas, every effort is made to create the illusion of space and distance, as well as to capture feelings of peace in the gardener's heart and soul.

The first thing a gardener might like to do is just sit quietly and look at the space involved. What type of Japanese garden design would the area lend itself to? Japanese gardens are rich in texture and symbolism: lantern shapes have hidden meanings, moss creates a rich background texture, aged bonsai trees provide visual beauty, sand gardens are contemplative, and a yatsuhashi, or eight-fold Japanese bridge, guarantees that time is taken to enjoy the small things in life that are so easily and quickly overlooked in our fast-paced world.

"You ask me why I dwell in the green
mountain;
I smile and make no reply for my heart is free
of care.
As the peach blossom which flows
downstream and is gone into the unknown,
I have a world apart that is not among men."

-- Li Po

A Japanese garden strives to be true to the essence of nature, a beauty that is quiet and refined. It has a static quality which is maintained by the predominance of stone and evergreen plants, and yet is constantly changing through the seasons.

Types of Japanese garden designs: (click on links for photos)

Japanese garden designs tend to be of two main types: "stroll" gardens and "viewing" gardens. Through the former, one walks along a path and enjoys a series of carefully planned landscape views from various vantage points. The viewing garden is designed to be seen from one place only, perhaps through a window, and is often quite small.

• Stroll Gardens - A stroll garden may include one or more hills to represent mountains. Usually associated with the hills will be a stream or miniature lake, and perhaps a waterfall. A rocky island, planted with a low juniper or picturesque pine, may occupy an off-center position in the lake.
  
  

  From the main viewing point, the hills are background to the water features. The path is contrived to lead the stroller naturally from vantage point to vantage point.
  
  Some examples of Stroll Gardens are:

  - Strolling Pond Garden
  - Flat Sea Garden: or dry landscape
  - Natural Garden
  - Tea Garden
  

• Viewing Gardens - Viewing gardens are often gems. They are, in effect, 3 dimensional pictures achieved with living plants, rocks, and sometimes water. Highlighted with a lantern, every line, every mass, each particular texture is carefully studied and related to the whole.
  
  

  Japanese viewing gardens are sculptured gardens, showing minimum change from season to season, and with plant growth carefully controlled. The smaller the garden, the more important becomes the detail.
  
  

  An alternative method is to create a Japanese viewing garden without hills or even water. This is called a Sand & Stone Garden or dry garden. Representations of water and hills are created through the skillful use of bold rocks and fine gravel, coarse sand, or, possibly, "pools" or "streams" of flat, waterworn stones. In Japan, dry gardens are viewed from a veranda and not entered.

  To a perfect viewing garden, nothing can be added, nor can anything be taken from it without diminishing its effect.

Special Japanese garden design techniques:

Bonsai - general care, training & display
              - Bonsai plants under $30