I've been lurking for a bit now. This is a very informative newsgroup. I have a question that I hope can be answered. What is it that makes a "Japanese Garden" a true Japanese garden? There seems to be many interpretations out there. Any sites to recommend me to with pics? Thanks everyone. Michael
A true Japanese garden is one tended to by a Japanese gardener!!!!
Anything else is just an occidental looking for a place to happen.
:) cute ... however In my opinion there is no reason that the qualities of a Japanese garden cannot be applied to any garden. Simplicity, white space as important as foreground, etc. There are a great many books on the topic and many sites.
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How Zen that is!!!
Not to mention waaaaaay cheaper. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink!!!!
Any fool can take white gravel, a rock, a dead twig and a lantern and call it a Japanese garden.......
But does that really make it one?
I don't think so.
Hi all... I'm a lurker too...
...been reading up on bamboo lately and ran across an interesting passage on "Gardens in China and Japan" (as relating to bamboo :)...
quote
"Bamboo plays an important role in Chinese and Japanese gardens. To understand this, one needs to appreciate the significance of gardens and garden art in these countries. Garden design is considered an art form similar to landscape painting, and is carried out according to a comparable set of rules. (There are Fundamental differences between Chinese and Japanese garden art, but it would take us too far to go into these here. The reader should investigate the extensive literature.) In Asia there has always been a particular fear of wild, untamed nature, yet simultaneously a strong love for it and a feeling of unity with it. Nature and humanity are seen as indivisible. Gardens should reflect nature, but also provide people with the chance to immerse themselves in nature through meditation. A garden is therefore strongly symbolic. Chinese gardens are works of art in which landscapes are set up, not to imitate nature, but to simplify it and render it more profound, as in painting. A Chinese or Japanese, garden is scarcely comparable with a European garden, because it is based upon a different set of assumptions. Chinese and Japanese gardens create a landscape that stimulates the imagination rather than the understanding. One sees over and over the juxtaposition of Yang and Yin, the masculine and feminine, hard and soft; for example rock and water, bamboo and chrysanthemum, straight and curved lines.
"In 1634 Yuan Jeh wrote this about gardens; 'A single mountain can have many effects, a small stone can awaken many feelings. The shadows of dry banana leaves draw themselves wonderfully upon the paper of the window. The roots of the pine-tree force themselves through the cracks of the stone. If you can find peace here in the middle of the city why should you wish to leave this place and seek another?...' All things in Chinese gardens - and in still more refined and abstract form in Japanese gardens - have symbolic value and are aids to meditation. Water is always present, standing for human life and philosophical thought. There are no lawns, but gravel beds instead. Rocks symbolize mountains. They are often raised up high and particular value is laid on bizarre and steep formations. They represent, in contrast to water, the might of nature. Flowers are never planted in groups or patterns but stand isolated, to aid meditation. The chrysanthemum, which flowers late and is frost-tolerant, symbolizes culture and retirement, the water lily is the sign of purity and truth. Bamboo stands for suppleness and power, true friendship and vigorous age. The evergreen foliage of bamboo also provides a background for plum blossom and makes an artistic picture together with pine. In Asian gardens bamboo is usually thinned so that individual [snip]"
endquote [Bamboos, 1992, Recht / Wetterwald, ISBN 0-88192-268-4]
I particularly like the "why should you wish to leave this place and seek another?..." part!
cheers
Mark Tutty Gisborne NZ
One glaring characteristic:
Japanese gardens lack formal flower beds or borders. They are completely alien to Japanese gardens.
Dave
Except, of course, the sculpted, (usually) round, small-leafed Satsuki or Kurume azaleas that frequently border the paths in larger Japanese gardens, as in the Ninomaru Garden at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo and the less-manicured azaleas on the small islands in the Kyu-Shiba-rikyu Gardens in Minato-ku, Tokyo (and others). Smaller, more intimate gardens -- like tea gardens -- may only have a single, carefully clipped azalea as a highlight -- or none.
completely
What is it
seems to
to with
You might want to check out the Japanese Garden forum on the GardenWeb. It is a very active forum and frequently involves a lot of philosophical musings as to what consititutes a Japanese Garden, specially with respect to western gardens and gardeners. Lots of great photos posted, as well.
pam - gardengal
Very true, Jim, however I wasn't referring to compositional elements that define a space, I was talking about the 'mulched bed' juxtaposed with the turf or other strolling area...
Dave
Ha ha... If that were true, then vegetable gardens would be tended to by a vegetable gardener. :)
If you take a Japanese gardener for a drive in the northeast US he will be awestruck by the rock outcrops that occur where highway cuts have been made. Once these have been left alone for a while and get a few layers of ferns and laurel they look just right. Trying to create one in a garden is another matter.
We won't even go and suggest what type of gardener grows fruit or nuts!!!
The message from "Cereus-validus" contains these words:
Or prickly plants.
Janet
he
cuts
I dunno. There are plenty of rock outcrops in Japan.
layers of
aI'm not sure that a road cut can EVER look "just right." But it's not really that tough to create a natural rock wall, cliffside, or rocky glen in a garden. Just remember, (trite-but-true phrases coming up), less is more. And time heals all wounds.
It IS almost impossible to get the look of an aged cliff wall in one sitting, but give it a few years, leave fallen leaves where they fall to decay, provide _dampness_, and it will come. Native plants (especially those native to rocks and that KIND of rocks) also help.
Jim Lewis - snipped-for-privacy@nettally.com - Tallahassee, FL -
radically different I would say. Japanese gardens are for really small tight spaces, are very tightly landscaped and groomed constantly. I find Chinese landscaping to be much more "wild", loose, free style than Japanese. Ingrid
"j bloggs" wrote: . (There are Fundamental differences between Chinese and
Chinese and Japanese gardens create a landscape that
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Chinese landscaping to be
That's only partly true. There are a number of quite large (25-
60-Acre or larger) Japanese gardens in Tokyo alone, dating back to the Tokugawa Era, and before. Other large gardens can be found in Nara and Kyoto, among other cities.A feature of these, however, is that they are divided into many, much-smaller parts and that you usually cannot see one part from another -- unlike the famous gardens of Europe, where vistas of flowers and regimented pathways, mazes, etc. are favored.
They ARE groomed _almost_ constantly, but Japan, too suffers from a labor shortage and there are few Japanese today who seem to be willing to take on the constant bent-over labor of maintaining their large public gardens. The last time I was there, it actually was quite common to see weeds poking up through the clipped azalea borders, and the pathways were nowhere near as pristine as they used to be. The gardeners I DID see were all quite elderly. Mostly women.
Exception: The gardens around the Imperial Palace. Every leaf is in its place. Or else!
Of course, many other gardens are small and intimate. These are the gardens of private residences, or rooftop gardens of large corporations (or department stores). Tea house gardens are somewhat larger -- but still measured in square feet, rather than acres.
Jim Lewis - snipped-for-privacy@nettally.com - Tallahassee, FL - Only where people have learned to appreciate and cherish the landscape and its living cover will they treat it with the care and respect it should have - Paul Bigelow Sears.
Japanese gardens in Japan look like what God could do if he had a good editor. zemedelec
I picture a longish, languid eggplant with short arms and legs and a long rake. It spends at least 50% of the time in the garden hammock. zemedelec
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