The Art of the Japanese Garden. David Young
reinforced in the Meiji Period after the invasion of Western culture. Flowers are generally found in flatland gardens, especially along streams or ponds.
Moss and stone checkerboard pattern in the North Garden of Tōkufuji Temple’s Hōjō Garden, Kyoto, designed by Shigemori Mirei.
Uses of Vegetation
Trees and shrubs contribute to the basic compositional structure of a garden but like other plants they have a variety of uses. For example, trees and shrubs provide shade, disrupt long-range views, screen undesirable elements outside the garden, frame “borrowed scenery” and provide borders to areas selected for emphasis. Vegetation is also used to provide a transition between different scenes in a stroll garden, thereby unifying the composition. Non-flowering trees and shrubs can provide a relatively homogeneous backdrop for compositions such as rock arrangements. Of particular interest is the use of vegetation to aid in the creation of perspective. For example, a feeling of distance can be achieved by placing plants with bright colors or large leaves in the foreground and darkcolored plants with small leaves in the background. Vertical distance can be manipulated in the same manner. For example, a hill can be made to appear higher by planting large trees at the base and smaller trees at the top.
Symbolism and Color
Some species of plants have specific meanings. For example, the lotus, most commonly found in Paradise gardens, though rooted in the mud, grows to the surface of a pond to produce a beautiful flower, giving rise to the hope that humans can rise above the impurities of life to attain enlightenment. This is one of the reasons that Buddha is often depicted as sitting on a lotus blossom.
To take another example, pines are a symbol of endurance. Their shape and color, however, can also be important. A twisted pine suggests a windswept coast whereas a stunted pine connotes a high alpine plateau. Regardless of its shape, the evergreen foliage of a pine tree provides a touch of life to a garden even in the cold winter months and thereby connotes the ability to withstand difficult external conditions.
Fauna
Fauna are an important and often overlooked part of Japanese gardens. Fish eat algae and other vegetation that otherwise can take over a pond. Koi, a type of carp, is the most common fish in Japanese gardens. Koi, which add a decorative touch with their flashes of gold and orange, must be provided with places to hide from predatory birds and animals.
Other residents of garden ponds include turtles and water snakes as well as a variety of insects and amphibians such as frogs and salamanders. Although not as decorative as koi, they all play a role in helping maintain the balance of a pond. Ponds and the surrounding vegetation also play host to waterfowl and other birds that provide a touch of spontaneity in gardens that in many ways are tightly managed. Finally, some parks and gardens are home to special residents such as the hoofed creatures that entertain visitors by bowing for food in Nara’s famous Deer Park.
Trees, clipped shrubs and groomed lawns provide interesting contrasts in both form and color at the Adachi Museum Garden in Shimane Prefecture.
Koi help maintain the balance of a pond in addition to adding a touch of color.
Weeping cherry trees at Hōkongōin, Kyoto.
Bamboo and autumn maple at Tenryūji Temple, Kyoto.
Stone path at Kōtōin, a sub-temple of Daitokuji Monastery, Kyoto.
Swans amid cherry blossoms at Hirosaki Castle Park in Aomori Prefecture, famous for its blossoms.
Azalea bush.
White lotus and red bridge in summer, Daikakuji Temple, Kyoto.
Stone path twisting through the bushes past a stone lantern.
Cherry blossoms along a stream at Kenrokuen Garden, Kanazawa.
Japanese maples in autumn at Tōkufuji Temple, Kyoto.
Kumazasa, a variety of dwarf bamboo (Sasa grass), often used in gardens.
Ostrich ferns grown in flatland where there is shade and moisture.
Dense grove of bamboo at Jizōin Temple, Kyoto.
One of the more than a hundred varieties of moss found at Saihōji, Kyoto’s Moss Temple.
Flowering irises provide color to the garden of Murin-an, Kyoto, in spring.
September lilies along the Yatsuhashi Bridge in Koishikawa Kōrakuen Garden, Tokyo.
THE CHANGING SEASONS
The main island of Japan (Honshu) has a temperate climate with four distinct seasons that long have been a major inspiration for the Japanese. The four seasons are expressed in picture scrolls and flower arrangements that are displayed in the recessed alcove (tokonoma) of a traditional room as well as in short poems (haiku). A particularly eloquent expression of the changing seasons is the annual cycle of a Japanese garden.
Featuring the Seasons
All gardens are planned in such a way that they will be beautiful throughout the year. This requires great attention to factors such as the succession of plants in bloom and the inclusion of different types of lanterns: some that mark the path in summer, and others that hold the snow in winter. Despite the general goal of changing with and reflecting all four seasons, most gardens are at their best during one or two seasons of the year, and a few are famous for a single event, such as the blooming of irises in the summer or the turning of maple leaves in the autumn.
An ancient method of featuring all four seasons in a single garden is described in The Tale of Genji, the world’s first full-length novel, written in the Heian Period. According to The Tale of Genji, the garden at the Rokujō Palace in the capital was divided into four quarters, one for each season, following Chinese principles of geomancy. Thus, a cool natural spring, appreciated most on a hot summer day, was included in the summer quarter located to the south. Thickly planted pines, beautiful after newly fallen snow, were planted in the winter quarter located to the north. The spring quarter was located in