Japanese garden

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Stone lantern amid plants. The shape of the roof will trap and hold a picturesque cap of snow.

Japanese gardens (Kanji 日本庭園, nihon teien), i.e. gardens in traditional Japanese style, can be found at private homes, in neighborhood or city parks, at Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines, and at historical landmarks such as old castles. Many of the Japanese gardens most famous in the West, and within Japan as well, are dry gardens or rock gardens, karesansui. The tradition of the Tea masters has produced highly refined Japanese gardens of quite another style, evoking rural simplicity. Japanese gardens have also been imitated in Western gardening.

Typical Japanese gardens contain several of these elements, real or symbolic:

• Water
• An island
• A bridge to the island
• A lantern, typically of stone
• A teahouse or pavilion

• Strolling gardens, for viewing from a path
• Sitting gardens, for contemplating from one place, such as the tiny tsuboniwa found in machiya (traditional wooden townhouses).

Karesansui garden at Tōfuku-ji in Kyōto

The karesansui (or karesenzui, kosansui, kosensui 枯山水: "dry landscape") style originate from zen temples. These have no water and few plants, but typically evoke a feeling of water using pebbles and meticulously raked gravel or sand. Rocks chosen for their intriguing shapes and patterns, mosses, and low shrubs typify the karesansui style. The garden at Ryōan-ji, a temple in Kyoto, is particularly renowned.

This garden has an abundance of plants, including seasonal flowers.

Other gardens also use similar rocks for decoration. Some of these come from distant parts of Japan. In addition, bamboos and related plants, evergreens including Japanese black pine, and such deciduous trees as maples grow above a carpet of ferns and mosses.

Shakkei (借景), "borrowed scenery," is a technique Japanese gardeners use to make a small garden seem more spacious. By judiciously planting shrubs to block the view of nearby structures, they encourage the viewer to look up toward the mountains, and to think of them as part of the garden.

The Use of Stones, Water, and Plantings in Japanese gardens

Stone lanterns in Monte Palace Tropical Garden on Madeira

Japanese gardens are designed to be tranquil sanctuaries that allow individuals to escape from the stresses of daily life. These spaces are created to set a space apart from the everyday world to let the observer get in touch with nature and it turn, himself.

This garden style requires the observer to walk through the garden to fully appreciate it. A premeditated path takes observers through each unique area of a Japanese garden. Uneven surfaces are placed in specific spaces to prompt people to look down at particular points. When the observer looks up, they will see an eye-catching ornamentation--this type of design is known as the Japanese landscape principle of "hide and reveal"--which is intented to enlighten and revive the spirit of the observer.

Japanese legend attests that stones are actual beings with spirits that need to be treated with reverence. Stones place an enduring quality upon a garden and are used to construct the garden's paths, bridges, and walkways. Stones also represent mountains where actual mountains are not viewable or present. They are always placed in odd numbers and a majority of the groupings reflect triangular shapes.

Water symbolizes purity and adds to a gardens seclusiveness. A water source in a Japanese garden should appear to be part of the natural surroundings; this is why one will not find fountains in traditional gardens. Man-made streams are built with curves and irregularities to create a serene and natural appearance. Lanterns are often placed beside some of the most promeinent water basins(either a pond or a stream) in a garden representing the felmale and the male elements of water and fire. In Japanese tradition this is known as yin and yang. In some gardens one will find a dry pond or stream. Dry Ponds and streams have as much impact as do the ones filled with water.

Green plants are the third element of Japanese gardens. Japanese traditions prefer minimal color so the use of flowers is generally parsimonious. Plants with colorful blooms are mostly used near a garden's entrance. Many plants in imitated Japanese gardens of the West are indigenous to Japan, though some sacrifices must be made to account for the differentiating climates. Some plants, such as sugar maple and firebush, give the garden a palet of color on a seasonal basis.

Noteworthy Japanese gardens

A strolling garden

In Japan

• Hosokawa Gyōbu-tei in Kumamoto, Kumamoto Prefecture
• Kairaku-en in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture
• Kenroku-en in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture
• Kōkyo Higashi Gyoen, the East Garden of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo
• Kōraku-en in Okayama, Okayama Prefecture
• The moss garden of Saihō-ji in Kyoto
• Sankei-en in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture
• Shugaku-in Imperial Villa, Saihō-ji (the "Moss Temple"), in Kyoto
• Urakuen tea garden, Inuyama
• The grounds of the Meiji Shrine, in Tokyo

In the United States

A spacious Japanese garden: Hosokawa Gyobu Tei, near Kumamoto Castle

• Anderson Japanese Gardens (Rockford, Illinois)
• Chicago Botanic Garden (Glencoe, Illinois)
• Fort Worth Japanese Garden at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden (Fort Worth, Texas)
• Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden at Long Beach State
• Hakone Gardens (Saratoga, California)
• The Huntington, San Marino, California.
• Japanese Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park (San Francisco, California)
• Portland Japanese Garden, Portland, Oregon
• Japanese Friendship Garden (Phoenix, Arizona)
• Roji-en Japanese Gardens at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens (Delray Beach, Florida)
• San Antonio Japanese Tea Gardens (San Antonio, Texas)
• Seattle Japanese Garden at the Washington Park Arboretum, Kubota Garden (Seattle, Washington)
• Seiwa-en at the Missouri Botanical Garden (St. Louis, Missouri)

• The Buenos Aires Japanese Garden (Jardín Japonés de Buenos Aires http://www.jardinjapones.org.ar/portada.htm), of the Fundación Cultural Argentino Japonesa [link].

• Himeji Gardens, Adelaide
• At Cowra, New South Wales
• [Melbourne Zoo]
• [Frankston High School]

In Canada

• Nitobe Memorial Garden, Vancouver, British Columbia

• The [Japanese Gardens] at the Irish National Stud, Kildare, Co. Kildare

See also

• Japanese Friendship Garden
• Tea garden
• Chinese garden
• Korean gardens

External links

• [Jgarden — Japanese Garden Database]
• [Meditations on the Japanese Garden]
• [About Japanese Gardens — Pictures of Private and Public Japanese Gardens]
• [Paradise - The Gardens of Tokyo : a portfolio of photographs by Tim Porter]

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