Japanese Gardening

Japanese Gardening

Japanese Gardening has become quite popular in recent years. When people think of a Japanese garden, they picture a tranquil, peaceful place to get away from the fast pace of world.

True Japanese gardening is steeped in rich history and tradition. Many people have the wrong impression of Japanese gardens too. Some people think for instance, that a Japanese garden is filled with elaborate and exotic plants and flowers. In reality though, traditional Japanese gardens can sometimes seem quite mundane, or even boring at times.

Japanese gardens actually attempt to mimic nature, and this is the primary reason they don’t always appear to be overly elaborate or showy. If for example, a garden is being designed for mountain type terrain, then the garden will have plants, shrubs, and other elements which make it look completely natural for the area it’s in.

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Garden Tip...

In summer, watering in the cool of the evening will be followed by the best results, for it will give the plants time to take up and assimilate the moisture necessary to their life, and being completely charged with water, they will be prepared for the hot sun and drying winds of the following day.
~ James Sheehan
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Besides trying to mimic and blend into the natural surroundings, Japanese gardens will often use items symbolically too. A garden which wants to have space representing the ocean may have no water in it at all, for example. Instead it may have a raked rock area which is designed to just represent the ocean.

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Garden Tip...

Probably the most important matter to be observed in growing house-plants is that of watering them. The cultivator should know just when to water, and to give it where it will do the most good. Amateur florists often exhibit much poor judgment in watering. It is the habit of some to keep the soil about their plants constantly soaked with water, and they wonder why they are not thrifty or healthy. These cultivators do not stop to consider that such treatment is unnatural, and will have an effect contrary to what is desired. There are those who resort to the opposite extreme, and keep their plants all the time in a perishing condition of dryness, which is even worse than if they were watered to death. If we will observe how judiciously Nature distributes the sunshine and shadow, the periodical rains, and the refreshing dews, we will learn an important lesson.
~ James Sheehan
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There are many common elements that most Japanese gardens have though. Most incorporate rock for instance, in various ways. Rock and stone could be in a Japanese garden around a pond, in the sitting accessories or decorations, or simply as landscape elements instead. The basic rule of thumb however, is that nothing should be in a Japanese garden that’s not natural.

A Japanese garden wouldn’t have a square pond in it for example, because there’s no such thing as a square body of water in nature. A Japanese garden also won’t usually have tropical flowers in it if the garden is located in an arid or rocky environment too. Because of this tendancy towards blending the garden with natural elements surrounding it, Japanese gardens tend to vary quite widely.

If you can create a garden which looks like it was put there by nature though, you’ve succeeded in building a proper Japanese garden. Your garden can have water elements if you’d like - and if they fit naturally with the area you live in. The water elements can be fish ponds or natural waterfalls for instance, but don’t put a plastic liner in your Japanese garden pond because these don’t appear in untouched natural environments.

Rock and stone are primary elements to use in all Japanese gardens. Using stone in the garden should also be done in a natural way though. You won’t usually find three uniform, perfectly shaped stones in nature, so you shouldn’t have those in your Japanese garden either. Instead, try putting together groups of three to five boulders or large rocks that vary in size and shape.

Stones can also be used to create a garden walking path, but the path should be created to fit the lay and flow of the land of your garden. Don’t try putting a garden path straight up a hill or slope for instance, if you want the garden to have a true Japanese feel. Instead, have your path wind it’s way up the natural curves and shape of the slope.

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